


Bait and Switch

by ineptdetective



Category: The Nice Guys (2016)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Case Fic, Detective Noir, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Sexism, Post-Canon, Post-Movie(s), References to Drugs, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-08-14
Packaged: 2018-07-21 20:28:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 53,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7402750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineptdetective/pseuds/ineptdetective
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Nice Guys Detective Agency is 6 months old. A seemingly simple case gets complicated fast.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Stakeout

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize for switching back and forth between povs... I just love both these characters so much and want to write what both of them are thinking. In terms of canon, I'm using some details from the novelization, but not all, and considering everything in the movie to be canon. I have the story planned out, but it's getting much longer than I expected!
> 
> I've never really posted fic before, so I'm super nervous. Thanks for reading!

At 3:00 am on the morning of the fourth night of their very unsuccessful stakeout of the Meyer household, Jackson Healy had a breakthrough in self-awareness.

“I think I hate music,” he declared, as if it were a revelation from On High, and slapped the button for the radio, bringing silence to the car.

Holland March, who had really only been half asleep, but had definitely been appreciating the low-volume reassurance of the Bee Gees, squinted at him, and in a voice higher pitched than he had intended responded, “What?... What the fuck? Who _hates_ music? What… like, _all_ music?”

Jackson pursed his lips and nodded, not taking his eyes off the two story, faux-Spanish-style Beverly Hills mansion just beyond the wrought iron gate. “I just don’t like it.”

Holland straightened up in his seat. “No.”

“Whaddaya mean, ‘No’?”

“I mean, ‘No, you do not hate music.’ That’s stupid.”

“A man can’t have a personal preference?”

“I mean. Yes, if you’re… like, saying you hate Disco or you hate the Eagles, but… No. Not _all_ music.”

“ _You_ hate disco?” He dipped his pinky into the half-empty styrofoam cup on the dashboard, not really expecting the coffee to be warm, but hoping it was. It wasn’t.

“No!” Holland snapped again, a little too quickly to sound cool. “I mean… yeah. I mean, it’s alright. It’s just an example of an _acceptable_ prefer– Look. We’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you, and your hatred of the one thing that can soothe the savage beast.”

“I just prefer silence”

Holland scoffed and fumbled around in his jacket for the flask. “Well, you coulda fooled me, Mr. ‘I-can’t-go-two-fucking-seconds-without-talking’ Healy.”

Jackson raised an eyebrow at him. “Is that the best you’ve got?” He found it amusing that March was constantly accusing him of being too talkative, especially when Holland’s mouth was always running a mile a minute.

Holland took a swig and shrugged. “Whaddaya want. It’s three in the morning, and I’m practically sober.” He dribbled the whiskey a little and wiped his moustache with the back of his hand.

Jackson sighed. All signs pointed to them going home empty handed, yet again, having wasted another night of switching shifts watching for the supposed pervert that was stalking the Meyer family.

“What are we doing here, March?” Jackson asked, drinking some of the ice-cold, bitter coffee and cringing a little as he did so.

“It’s called a stakeout, Healy.”

“Then this is the worst stakeout I’ve ever seen. We look like a couplea drug dealers out here, sitting in a shit car in the middle of the Hills.” He shook his head and plunged the keys into the ignition. “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this. This is just… you know what it is… it’s lazy.”

“Hey! I resent that. This car is not ‘shit.’” Holland wiped more whiskey off his shirt and flicked it out the window. “It's brand new! It’s a Mercedes, for Chrissakes.”

The engine complained loudly as Jackson turned the ignition, and the strange and unidentifiable rattling noise in the rear passenger-side door started up as they pulled away from the curb. Jackson wouldn’t be surprised to look in the rearview mirror and see the muffler just sitting behind them on the pavement, dropped out of the belly of the convertible like a goose egg. The car was only six months old, but already more scratched and dented and dinged up than a junkyard Pinto.

Not one week after March had bought it, an irate divorcee had pounded the hell out of it with a crowbar-- revenge for the photographs Holland had taken of her stepping out on her husband.  Then, a month later, Holland had driven over the fire hydrant in front of the construction site where the new house was going up. There was still that wet, moldy smell in the seats from where the geyser had poured down over the windshield, the top having been down at the time. Not that Holland would notice.

“I’ve been meaning to get it looked at…” Holland said more quietly, pulling his Dodgers cap down further on his forehead. “Just needs a tuneup. And anyway,” voice rising, “I’m not lazy. Stakeouts are a PI’s bread and butter.”

“Maybe when they’re done with a little more… I dunno… _discretion_.”

“Excuse me, 007. If I’m not mistaken, your idea of discreet is sucker-punching someone in the face as soon as they answer the door and then breaking their fucking bones.”

Jackson cringed a little, then shook it off. He’d been doing a job, nothing personal, and they needed to move past his previous employment and former indiscretions and look to the future of their partnership. He refused to feel guilty about it any longer.

“I’m just saying… maybe we need to come back in my car, or… maybe just on foot. You know, hide in the bushes?”

Holland chuckled. “What, like peeping toms?”

“Maybe you gotta act like one to catch one?” It sounded right in his head, but when he said it, it fluctuated in the air between creepy and corny.

“Heh heh, whatever, pervert.”

*

 

Mrs. Meyer and her husband had called the agency a week ago, convinced that some creep was watching her at night. She had found footprints in the flower garden outside. She had heard strange noises in the wee hours that couldn’t be explained away by the house settling or rats, or any other common domestic hazard. But mostly she just always felt that tingling sensation that someone was watching her.

It wasn’t unheard of, and neither Jackson nor Holland’s bullshit detectors were going off. At least she hadn’t been trying to convince them that her house was haunted.  Jill and Harold Meyer had two kids, 4 and 7, and feared for their safety, as well as for their own privacy, and it was one of those cases that Jackson was just desperate to help them with because it was “the right thing to do.” Holland, for his part, took a look at their address, found out that Harold was an investment banker, and saw dollar signs. So he agreed. Right thing to do. All the way.

There were no fingerprints or other hard evidence left behind, and the shoeprints in garden were unidentifiable, the soil being too soft and mealy to hold a well-defined print.

When the Meyers called the Nice Guys Detective Agency and made an appointment, they asked for privacy. Jill confessed that she had once been a “ _model_ ,” of a sort, under her maiden name, and would thank them very much if they could keep the whole thing private. She’d had bad experiences in the past with the police not believing her, thinking she had this sort of thing coming since she was… you know… _that_ kind of woman once.

Once she brought it up, Holland realized he was pretty sure he recognized her.

Now that she had a family to raise and a husband to care for-- a husband with a reputation to maintain-- they would be happy to pad the payment just a little for the extra secrecy.

Seems they’d heard about The Nice Guys and their experience with ‘delicate’ matters.

They got started that very afternoon, going over the evidence the police had collected, interviewing the family and the closest neighbors.

March and Healy’s first couple of cases together had been either your run-of-the-mill divorces where one side was looking for dirt on the other or the occasional adopted adult looking for their long-lost birth family. So this, a case of a damsel in distress with a secret past, seemed exciting at first. Until they ran out of leads. Then things just got boring.

The stakeout had been Holland’s play for more time and more money. And hell, he could get some sleep in the car and wouldn’t have to lie awake all night in bed all by himself. He could doze right there in the passenger seat, depending on Healy’s indomitable spirit and work ethic to keep the man awake all night.

But now here they were, calling it quits on the old wait-and-see, and tomorrow it would be back to footwork and questioning the neighbors and poring over old newspapers to see if they could find any kind of pattern.

*

At least Holly would be happy. She’d confronted him yesterday morning (Okay fine... afternoon) and said in no uncertain terms that she was going to sock Janet in the face if she had to spend one more night on her lumpy trundle bed.

“Why don’t you just go to Jessica’s house? She’s the one you like, right?” He had asked her.

“Jessica’s in _France_ with the French club, remember?” she had shot back.

“Oh, right. Well, excuse me for forgetting about the far-flung adventures of your most cosmopolitan friend.” He had lit a cigarette, trying, as usual, to appear aloof to her teenage attitude. “Anyway, what about Melissa?”

“She’s grounded.”

“Charlie?”

“She’s got mono.”

“Mono? Christ! You tell her to stop sticking her tongue down random boys’ throats?”

Holly had rolled her eyes. “She got it from sharing a soda with someone. She’s not like that.”

“Whatever. Just. You’re just sleeping at Janet’s. You don’t have to be her best friend.”

*

 

Now, Holland turned his attention back to the flask, and to Healy’s inane proclamation. “So, what _do_ you like?”

“Peace, quiet, sleeping in a regular bed at night rather than, say, a diving board or a pile of garbage.”

Holland snorted, as if the comment was too stupid to even dignify with a response, and pulled the hat all the way down over his eyes. It did remind him, though, that it was only a fifteen minute drive back to the house on the hill, the new old one, but fifteen minutes might be enough sleep for him to avoid having to get into that empty bed in that empty bedroom.

Healy glanced over at him and immediately felt guilty for that one.  He knew why March rarely slept in his own bed. Or at least he suspected he knew. Loneliness was a hell of a thing, and guilt was even worse. Seeing that empty space next to you on the mattress was bad enough when you’d gone through a divorce, but Healy couldn’t even imagine what it would be like after a loss like what March had experienced. _I’ve gotten about three hours of sleep in the last four days,_ he reasoned. _It’s likely to make anyone ornery._

The rebuilding of the old place had gone faster than March had expected. Holly had talked him into starting it back up again after the rental had been pretty much gutted by gunfire. They’d lived in an apartment for the six months it had taken, opting to let the owners and insurance deal with the now-derelict property with the swimming pool full of cigarette butts.

They’d moved in three weeks ago, and March wasn’t doing well with it. There still wasn’t any furniture in most of the rooms, and there was a hollowness there that reminded him why he was still lonely, even with Healy and Holly. And when he was lonely, he was reminded of exactly whose fault that was.

The one thing that saved it was how happy Holly was. She seemed better rested, more cheerful, and, most importantly, less critical of him. He was careful to keep it that way, pushing his anger and depression way down deep (or, more accurately, boiling just below the surface), and, while that mostly involved cracking wise and drinking slightly more than usual, he also had thrown himself into his work with a little more commitment. It helped to have a partner who could kick his ass if he didn’t show up.

They pulled into the drive at 3:20, and as Healy got out of the car, gently closing the door so as not to wake his partner, he got the very distinct and hackle-raising feeling of being watched. He hitched his hands up on this hips, cocked his head, and studied the house.

Everything looked to be in order, at least at first glance. All the lights were off except the porch light, the shades drawn, the door closed–

 _Wait a minute…_ Healy backpedaled mentally. _They don’t close the blinds in the living room._

Moving even more quietly, he opened the car again, and slid the shotgun out from below the seat. He leaned it against the car, and then slowly reached over the steering wheel, putting his hand over Holland’s mouth before waking him. Healy shook him gently and Holland jerked awake, limbs flailing, muffled protests going straight into Healy’s rough, wide palm.

Healy held a finger to his lips and then gestured toward the house. Holland grumbled, but obeyed the request for silence. He took off his hat so he could see better, then, as carefully as possible for a man as clumsy as he was, he exited the car, bringing with him the .38 special, which he had been stowing in the glovebox during their idle hours.

“What?” He mouthed to Jackson, not immediately seeing what was amiss.

Healy pointed to the window.

Holland crept around the front of the car carefully, his boots clicking slightly on the smooth concrete, and leaned close to Jackson’s ear. “Maybe Holly came home,” he suggested under his breath.

“And pulled the curtains? Like none of us ever do?”

Holland nodded, agreeing, “Yeah… I guess I didn’t even know we had curtains.”

“Take your goddamn boots off, March. You sound like a horse on a dancefloor, clopping around.”

“Fuck you,” Holland countered, but slipped his shoes off anyway, the concrete still warm on the soles of his bare feet, even at this time of the morning. It had been hot lately, the sun baking everything it touched, leaving its heat behind long into the nights.

Jackson jerked his chin toward the house and started to advance. Holland followed, but far back enough to feel safe behind Healy.

Jackson motioned for him to go around to the back door. “Shouldn’t we just wait until daylight?” Holland whispered shakily.

Jackson gave him a stern look and motioned again.

“Fine. Fuck.”

 _Whoever it is, if they’re still there, they probably already know we’re here anyway,_ March thought to himself.

Thankfully, because everything was so new, the gate opened silently, without a creak, and he was able to creep stealthily around to the back patio. The grass felt a little rough and dry between his toes, and he wondered if it was dying already. Like he’d ever known how to take care of a lawn.

Before he even got to the sliding door, he noticed that the blinds were closed there too. Also not normal. He stopped there. What exactly was he supposed to be doing back here?

He jumped about a mile into the air at the sound of Healy banging on the front door.

“Hello?” Jackson called. His gruff voice sounded strangely gentle in the still night air. He banged the door again, then rang the doorbell a few times.

They both waited from their respective positions, their skin crawling, the adrenaline rising, expecting something to happen. But nothing did.

“I’m coming in!” Jackson bellowed, jiggling the handle of the door so loudly that Holland felt like he could practically see him through the house.

His shoulders were just about to relax and drop away from his ears when the sliding door suddenly rocketed open and a figure burst through the slatted curtain so fast it took a handful of the panels with it.

Holland bolted after him, actually pretty relieved to be barefoot. It made it so much easier to—

“ _Fuck_!” he hollered as his foot came down arch first on the sprinkler head, causing him to lurch forward, face first into a mouthful of turf. He looked up just in time to see the figure hop the back fence and disappear over the other side of the hill. “Fuck.”

Jackson was already through the side gate and running across the lawn toward him, a slightly stupid look of concern on his face as he approached Holland’s prone body.

“I’m fine!” Holland barked, “Go get that fucker!” He hitched his thumb toward the back fence as he struggled to get his feet under him and stand up.

Jackson nodded and followed the same trajectory as the intruder, sticking one toe of his sneakers into the chain link fence and then deftly jumping over.

March was back on his feet and over the fence seconds later, trying to ignore how goddamn painful it was to run barefoot on the rocky surface of the vacant lot behind the house. _Healy’s in for it when this is over._

By the time he caught up with Healy, the intruder was nowhere in sight, having disappeared somewhere, probably into someone else’s backyard. Healy had clearly lost the trail, because as March approached him, he was just standing there, scanning left and right to see where the guy had gone.

March leaned over and put his hands on his knees, reaching in his pocket for a drink. The flask was light and empty, and he groaned.

“Did you recognize him?” Healy asked, still out of breath himself.

“I dunno, I was too busy smashing my fucking foot on the sprinkler system to get a good look,” he hissed, kicking Healy ineffectively in the shin. “Great fucking idea making me take my shoes off if you were just gonna walk up to the door and start yelling anyway.

He plopped down on the sidewalk and took his foot in his hands, looking at the sole. It was dirty, and a little cut up, but relatively fine. He decided to sulk for a minute anyway, to prove his point.

“You okay?”

Holland hesitated out of frustration, then blew out a breath and muttered, “Yes. Fine. Fine.”

“You never heard of socks?”

“Oh, like socks would’ve helped. And anyway… let’s just get back up there, thanks.”

Lights in the neighboring houses had all gone on by the time they got back. Holland supposed they had made a bit of a ruckus. He just wondered if anyone had called the police yet.

They took the long way back to the house, walking along the sidewalk and winding back around. Holland wasn’t about to set foot in that gravel again.

“You think anyone’s still in there?” March asked, lighting up a cigarette. He wasn’t whispering anymore. Figured they’d spent their advantage as far as the element of surprise.

“Only one way to find out,” Healy said, taking the keys back out of his pocket. He opened the door, standing to the right of it, where there was no window, and where no shotgun blast through the wood could gut him.

They let the door hang open for a few moments before peering their heads around the corner of the frame. It seemed quiet. They went silent again as they crept around the house, looking in the closets and under the beds, finding nothing until Healy opened the door of the master bathroom.

He lowered the shotgun and covered his nose and mouth with the back of his hand.

“We got a corpse up here,” he called down to Holland.

The thudding of Holland’s feet running up the stairs grew nearer until he was standing behind Healy in the doorway. “What!”

He peered over Jackson’s shoulder, then darted back out into the hallway, gagging. The dead stranger was slumped on the toilet, one of Holly’s issues of seventeen magazine dropped in front of him, pants around his ankles, blood pooling on the linoleum. A hole the size of a tennis ball was tunneled through his chest, just left of center, where his heart would’ve been. Gunpowder peppered his knees and the toes of his shoes.

“Great,” March said, when he caught his breath. “Fucking great. We’ve been here, what. A couple weeks? And now we’ve got another fucking death in the house. I think I’m cursed.”

Healy considered it for a moment. “You might be.”

March was starting to panic, all joking aside. He could feel that cold grip in the bottom of his stomach, the one that told him his anxiety was about to knock him on his ass. He mumbled some incoherent excuse, then ran down the stairs, out the side door, and doubled over, vomiting into the grass until nothing came up. He so very much did not need another reason to not be able to sleep in this house.

By the time he got back upstairs, Jackson was leaning in the hallway just outside the bathroom, arms crossed, brow furrowed.

“You done?”

Holland nodded shakily. “Uh. Yeah. Yes.” He wiped a little sweat off his forehead and noticed Healy was still staring at him, with, what? Concern? Pity? “Yes! Let’s go. What do we got?” He mustered his courage and started to go back into the bathroom. He’d dealt with bodies before… even flung one onto the head table at a wedding. Just because it was in his house this time was no reason to lose his shit.

Healy stopped him. “We need to keep this ocular only,” he said.

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“Ocular. You know, with your eyes… Look. Don’t touch.”

Holland considered it for a moment and then nodded. “Right.”

“It’s your house, there’s a body. We don’t need your fingerprints all over it.”

“Right,” March said again. They both stood in the doorway of the bathroom, shoulder to shoulder. “So what can we see?”

“Well. Male, maybe… late thirties? Mid forties?” The man was clean-shaven, was wearing a suit that was… maybe a little out of fashion, maybe by about ten years.  Cheap gold watch, well-worn shoes, salt and pepper hair cut into a military-type flat top, the smell of too much spray-on deodorant.

“Seems like an odd outfit for burglary,” March remarked.

“Maybe it’s our peeping tom,” Healy suggested.

“Well, that would be both convenient and also completely fucking shitty.”

“Because who the hell shot him, right?”

“Right! Who blew him away with a goddamn hand cannon while he was taking a dump on my toilet?” He took a breath, thankful he couldn’t smell all that blood… and… _stuff_. “And, while we’re at it, why was he taking a dump on my fucking toilet?”

Healy scratched his head. “Well, we gotta call the cops, if someone hasn’t already,” he admitted. Normally he’d go the normal route of doing the maximum investigation possible on his own, then explain to the cops later. But this was March and Holly’s place, and he couldn’t risk it.

He looked over at March, who looked so tired, so pale, and, somehow, kind of ridiculous at the same time. Like when you see a cat that’s just had a bucket of water dumped over its head, all wet fur clinging to a tiny skeleton, a frail, silly thing instead of the proud, sleek tom persona it normally projects to the world.

Holland was just looking over the dead man’s head at this point, sort of into the middle distance, or possibly at the wall. He nodded, agreeing with his partner on this one.

“Let’s go wait in the car,” March said distantly.

* * *

 

March glanced over at Healy, laid out across the back seat of the Benz, snoring. Holland shook his head. How could the guy sleep at a time like this?

March, for his part, was definitely shaking. His guts were empty of food, but, more devastatingly, empty of alcohol. He couldn’t believe that not one of these cops swarming all over the yard and the porch and the inside of the place had a flask between them.

Well, he knew they did. Cops were always drinking. They just weren’t sharing, and he didn’t want to push his luck with LAPD while they were investigating some dead guy sitting on his toilet. On _his_ fucking toilet.

Light started to creep up the sky, and Holland looked at his watch. He really should go get Holly before she had to come home and see this mess. He let himself out of the car, where he and Healy had been waiting with the top down, watching the crime scene.

After they’d given initial statements to the first cops on the scene, they had retreated back to the car, and Healy had gotten chatty in a weird way. Holland could only assume it was some kind of pathetic and exhausted attempt at smalltalk to distract him from what was going on. Almost mid-sentence into some inane comment about the weather, Healy had conked out.

Holland was rattled and anxious, his barely tamped hysteria rising in the back of his throat like bile. Even though the guy was too tired to make any kind of sense anymore, he kind of wished Healy was awake so he could talk at someone. He’d have to settle chatting up the nearest cop and hoping for a sympathetic ear.

He walked up behind a young wisp of an officer that was tending the caution tape line, making sure no one crossed it. “Excuse me. I really need to go pick up my daughter… how much longer do they need us to stick around?”

The cop eyed him up and down. Holland was still barefoot, having forgotten to pull his boots back on in all the excitement, and he could see them just over the cop’s shoulder, lying on the driveway, a little yellow evidence marker set down next to them. “Look, I dunno, buddy. I just work here.”

Holland raised his eyebrows at him. “Well, can I talk to the detective in charge then?”

The cop crossed his arms, turning away from the handful of Holland’s curious neighbors trying to get a peek. “He’s busy.”

“I just need two seconds… I gotta go pick up my kid, man. You know? You have kids?”

“Nope.”

An unmarked Monaco with a silently rotating siren light in the windshield pulled up just then, slowly easing its way through the lookie-loos, who parted like the red sea, then immediately filled back in behind it. The door opened, and Detective Tony Maldonado stepped out, a fresh cigarette hanging from his lips and a stern look on his face pointed right at Holland.

Holland was too jittery to be able to read his own feelings on this development. Tony had been his last friend at LAPD for years, until he’d moved North to Camarillo and started working for Ventura County. Now Holland knew basically none of these fucks, and the ones he did know, he didn’t trust as far as he could throw them. He didn’t completely trust Tony either, especially not after how they’d parted ways, but the man had always been clean and on the straight and narrow. It had always baffled him. Why would he have been so friendly to March, a disgraced and banished crooked cop, when Tony himself had always been viewed favorably by the higher ups, even at the city level? And why had March ever been interested in remaining friendly with him, when Tony was such a goddamn fucking square all the time? Maybe they had only remained friends on the basis of their mutually fucked up senses of humor.  Friend or no, however, Tony was always busting his balls over something or another, so Holland had no expectation of anything different now.

To his surprise, Tony offered a smile, reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a small round flask, extending his arm across the caution tape and offering it to Holland as a way of saying hi.

Holland, not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, uncapped it and just went ahead and emptied it into his dry stomach. Tony seemed completely unfazed by this, as if he had, in fact, been expecting it.

“This is out of your jurisdiction, isn’t it, Tone?” Holland asked, handing back the empty flask.  He suspected saying ‘How ya been?’ might be a little trite.

Tony ducked under the caution tape and shooed the young cop away with a wave. “Not as of Monday,” He said, lighting up his cigarette. He pulled the pack out of his other pocket, handed it to Holland, and then lit his cigarette too. “You’re looking at _Sergeant_ Maldonado now, Hall. LAPD dragged me back in with that offer. Too good to pass up.”

Holland tried not to act too impressed, but his ears burned a little with the embarrassment of just how far he’d fallen. He wondered where he’d be if he hadn’t been so fucking stupid in his early twenties.

“Well, uh. Congrats,” he said stupidly. He could feel the alcohol waiting, coiled in his belly, on the verge of restoring him to his normal glory. Tony was just staring at him, not asking him questions, not trying to make small talk, not screaming at him, not punching him in the face. Maybe the whiskey had been poisoned, March wondered idly.

Tony put his hand on Holland’s shoulder. “I came as soon as I found out,” he said, and Holland realized suddenly from the tone of the guy’s voice that there would be no ballbusting today. Good. He wasn’t sure he had the wit to banter with anyone at this point of the night. Morning. Whatever.

“I don’t even know the guy,” Holland said, taking a drag of smoke deep into his lungs, savoring every molecule of tainted air. He could feel the nicotine caressing each blood cell in his veins.

“Still,” Tony said. “This place? Your place? Looks brand new. It’s gotta be a real drag to have this happen so soon.”

Holland looked down uncomfortably at his bare feet. “Yeah. Well, uh.” He was beginning to realize he prefered being browbeaten to being pitied. He straightened back up and gestured back toward the car. “Look, you should meet my partner,” he said, trying to change the subject.

“Partner?” Tony asked, raising his eyebrows and following Holland as he strode toward the car. “I knew you were in the private eye business. Hadn’t heard you took a partner.”

“Yeah, he’s uh. He’s great.” March slammed a fist against the rear passenger side door, right next to Healy’s head. Healy was upright immediately and even had his fists up. The guy had excellent reflexes. March wondered if it had anything to do with sobriety, then dismissed the thought outright.

“Jackson Healy,” March said, with a little more fanfare than he should have, “This is Sergeant Tony Maldonado, LAPD.”

Jackson looked at the man, sizing him up, looked back at March, and then got out of the car, coming around to shake Tony’s hand. March got a sort of competing-alpha-dogs vibe off of the encounter.

“Pleasure,” Healy said gruffly, clearing his throat. He seemed miffed.

“Hey… Hey. Jackson _Healy_?”

Healy struggled admirably not to roll his eyes, just barely succeeding, but his face was visibly redder, even in the low light of dawn.

“No _shit_!” Tony swore, chuckling. “You know. Grabbing a shotgun out of a maniac’s hands isn’t always the best idea. How’s the arm, man?” He pantomimed a one-two punch at Jackson’s shoulder.

“Fine,” answered Jackson coldly, unmoving.

March clapped his hands together once, then piped in. “Great! Good times. Anyway. Tony, you gotta let us outta here. I gotta go get Holly. She’s staying at a friend’s and doesn’t know about any of this yet.”

Tony nodded, pulling the cigarette from his mouth. “Yeah. Well, first things first. Let’s talk about what’s going on here. Take a walk with me.”

Holland and Jackson nodded obediently and followed as Tony approached the house. Jackson shot Holland a look and mouthed, “Asshole,” jabbing a thumb at Tony. Holland shrugged. Tony was just starting to lean over to look at the discarded shoes in the driveway.

“The boots and the vomit are mine,” Holland blurted out.

Both men turned to look at him.

“You know. Like, they’re not evidence.”

“Noted,” Tony grunted, reaching down to pick the boots up off the concrete and handing them to March. He didn’t ask why Holland had taken them off in the first place. “Tell me what went down.”

Healy gave Tony a play-by-play of events from them leaving Beverly Hills to them losing the guy somewhere in the neighborhood.

“What’d he look like?” Tony asked, praying one of them had gotten a description.

Holland was sitting with his legs sprawled out on the driveway, gingerly pulling his boots back onto his filthy, bruised feet. “A guy. Maybe my height?”

Tony rolled his eyes and looked at Healy for help. No such luck.

“I caught sight of the back of him for maybe a second once I made it over the fence after him.  Lost him in the dark, though. Yeah, coulda’ been about March’s height.”

Tony considered them both for a moment, looked back at the house, then back at them. “All right,” he sighed. “Go get Holly. But I want you both back at the station right after that so I can take your statements officially. I’ve got responsibilities, you know.”

“ _Thank you,_ ” Holland replied emphatically, pushing himself back up. He thought about giving Tony a hug, but frankly the whole conversation had felt awkward at best, and he didn’t want to add to it. Mostly he just had the sense that he’d gotten away with something. Instead, he gave a little mock-salute, and booked it back to the car. Healy followed, making sure he got to the driver’s side first, having sniffed the whiskey on the air that surrounded Holland.

Holland looked back over his shoulder at Tony as they pulled away, and wondered what, if anything, he’d be able to tell them about the investigation. They’d been friends once, but, being Seargent was a big deal, and Holland wondered if the man would risk everything just to bend the rules. March certainly wouldn’t if the tables were turned. But then, that was only because he’d learned the hard way what it meant to get caught.

* * *

 


	2. The Third Partner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holly joins the investigation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm like, 99% sure that Holland's wife's name is never mentioned in the movie or the novelization, so I tried to make something up that was period-specific (looked up the top 100 baby names for 1946, deciding that she was younger than Holland, and picked one from toward the end of the list that I thought was sweet).  
> *  
> I also edited the tags a bit.  
> *

They pulled up to Janet’s and Holland hesitated. “Maybe you should go knock,” he said to Healy, looking nervously at the stuccoed, ranch-style home laid out before him.

“What?” Healy laughed and shook his head. “They don’t even know me. Stop fucking around and go get Holly so we can get back to the station and find out what the hell is going on.”

“Okay. Okay.” Holland checked himself in the sunshade mirror. He looked a wreck, but that was normal. He picked a piece of grass out of his teeth, put his cap back on to hide his flat hair, and braced himself for the encounter.

He knocked gently, and, after waiting a moment, wondered if he should knock again. Maybe louder this time. He raised his fist to do so, and brought it down on the wood once, hard. Janet’s mother, a homely, pale, petrified housewife, only opened the door a crack.

“Hi Angela,” he said, trying to be congenial. “I’m here to pick up Holly.” He had met her once or twice, dropping off or picking up, but she looked suddenly terrified of him, as if he were a complete stranger.

“Mr. March,” she said in a voice that was just a little too high pitched for his tolerance, “Have you been _drinking_?”

“I. Yes. I have had a drink.” He put on his best winning smile. He gestured back toward the car, “But as you can see, I’m not driving, so. Safety first, you know.”

She glanced at Healy, sitting in the idling car in the driveway. She glared at him. “Who is _that_?”

“Can you get Holly? Please?” Holland asked, trying to look over her head and into the house.

“It’s five in the morning, Mr. March.”

“Yeah, early to rise and all that…” He chuckled, “Guess I’m just a morning person.”

“Dad?” came Holly’s voice from behind her, a little husky sounding from sleep. She pushed Janet’s mother aside gently with her elbow, ducking under the woman’s arm that was holding the door, and came out to join him on the porch. She was wearing his old Black Sabbath T-shirt and some sweats. He used to jog in that shirt. When he still jogged. “What’s wrong?”

Her sleepy eyes were filled with concern.

“Nothing. Nothing, sweetie. I just thought we could go get some pancakes. You know. As a surprise.”

“It’s five in the morning, Dad,” she said suspiciously.

“Yeah, so I’ve heard.”

“Mr. March,” piped in Angela, “I don’t appreciate you waking up my whole family this early for frivolities like pancakes. And I don’t appreciate you coming to my home clearly inebriated.”

Holland tried to ignore her. He hated the judgement in her plain, sleep-smudged face. He hated that she was actually kind of right. “C’mon, Holly, honey. Go grab your things and let’s get going.”

Holly eyeballed him before going back into the house, but did as she was told anyway. He thought he heard her arguing with Janet down the hall, but couldn’t quite make it out.

“Angela, thank you so much for looking after Holly while I’ve been working. I mean, I very much appreciate your help. You know, working nights can be so difficult as a parent.” He was trying extra hard to sound adult and mature. “And I really do apologize for waking you so early.” It was forced, but god he was trying _so hard_ , and she had no idea how enormous a feat that was for him, especially right now.

Her beady little eyes looked him up and down. “You know, Mr. March,” she started, and Holland really wished Holly would hurry the fuck up, “I think you’re a bad apple. I know you’re not a Christian man, and I know you give in to vice. And I don’t think I want Janet spending time with Holly anymore.”

Holland opened his mouth, hoping a great snapback would magically manifest on his tongue so he could tell this goody-two-shoes bible-thumper exactly where to go, but Holly appeared, with her backpack slung over one shoulder and saved him.

“Good!” she snapped as she pushed past the woman. “The feeling is mutual.”

Holland beamed, proud of his progeny. “Yeah,” he said, putting his arm around Holly’s shoulders. “And I think Janet’s a bad influence on Holly. So. We won’t be back.”

The two of them turned and escaped down the front steps, not turning around as Janet’s mother cried out aggressively, “I’ll be praying for your souls!”

They both chuckled evilly at that one, then hopped in the car and Healy peeled out of the drive and down the street.

* * *

They pulled over a few blocks away to fill Holly in on the night’s unfoldings. Holland, at the end of whatever fragile rope he had left, was going for the rip-off-the-band-aid approach. He wasn’t sure if it was more for Holly or for himself, but he was too tired to think about it at the moment.

“–And then Healy’s shouting down to me about a corpse, and we go into the bathroom and there’s this _dead guy_ on the–”

“–there was a deceased man in the bathroom,” Jackson interjected quickly, placing a hand on Holland’s shoulder to signal him to stop talking. “It appeared he had been murdered.”

Holly’s eyes were wide, her cheeks flushed, and Holland, who knew every millimeter of her face, could see her mind working, fighting itself to remain in control. “You’re sure you’re both okay?” she asked, visually inspecting her father just to make doubly sure. She reached out and touched his forearm where it was resting on the back of the front seat. He put his hand gently over hers.

It was Jackson who responded out loud. “We’re fine, Holly,” he reassured her. “We’re fine. Everyone’s fine.”

“Well, _that_ guy isn’t. The murdered guy.” She was chewing her bottom lip and looking off to the side, out over the canyon, her mind starting to run away from her.

“Hey,” Holland said, reaching for her. “Come here.”

She spaced out for a few more moments before leaning toward him so he could hug her.

“We’re safe,” he said softly to her. “You’re safe.”

“We’re not going to let anything happen to you, Holly,” Jackson said in his gravelly voice, and she honestly felt comforted.

She eased gently out of her father’s embrace and leaned back in the seat again. “Why can’t you guys just have normal jobs?” She asked, knowing that wasn’t what she really wanted. “Melissa’s dad is an accountant.”

Holland patted her on the shoulder and looked her in the eye. “Sweetheart,” he said very seriously, “Melissa’s dad is a nerd. Okay?”

She giggled. “Fine.” She was slowly starting to feel better, and Healy and Holland could both tell. She was handling it well. Holland didn’t seem troubled by that, but Jackson felt a little uncomfortable with the fact that this little girl was in a position to have to “handle it well” when she was being told there’d been a murder in her house. No kid should have to be followed around by death like that, but he supposed if anyone could take the knocks, it was Holly.

“I _knew_ we weren’t getting pancakes,” she complained.

* * *

 

“Just tell me what you can, Tone,” Holland pleaded. “I get that you’re… you know… in a position of power now, but don’t leave us hanging.”

Tony eyed March from across the table and then glanced at the two-way mirror. “I can’t,” he said emphatically. “You fucking know this is an ongoing investigation, Holland. You gotta understand, I’ve gotta set an example for what goes on in this precinct. Especially after what happened.”

Holland blushed, then turned angry. “That was ten years ago. Fucking ancient history.”

“Not to the guys it isn’t.”

Holland hated to admit it, but Tony was right. He was pretty much reviled by the other cops after he’d gotten caught, which, even though he carried it with him on his list of shameful fucking things he’d done, always struck him as deeply unfair, since they’d all done much worse than just plant evidence on some lowlife like Breydo. Seriously, the things the others had done and gotten away with would make a grown man cry. Anyway, fucking Marcus Breydo had forgiven him, so why couldn’t they?

It was the getting caught part, and he knew it, even though he was half glad he had been found out. It wasn’t something he looked back on with pride, but he was glad someone had forced him to stop being such a dick. Well. Mostly. It had saved his marriage, anyway, getting out of the LAPD, even if it was shrouded in shame. Saved his marriage so he could properly fuck it up later all by himself.

“Well, I can’t keep paying for it forever,” he said glumly, glad that Jackson wasn’t in the room with him. That little adventure was not exactly something he had shared with his partner during the months they’d been working together, and he knew Jackson would pry into it later if he was privy to this conversation.

“Look,” Tony said gently, “I’m sorry. I really am. I’ll keep you and Holly up to date with whatever I can, but you gotta let the detectives do their work.”

Holland drummed his fingers on the table and nodded. He was so tired, so very very tired, and it was getting harder and harder to keep this up, bargaining for more information. And it was putting him off, this nice guy routine that Tony was pulling. The man had always been one of the straight cops, the good cops that went by the book, but even though Tony was a poster child for the Force and all that “Serve and Protect” crap, he’d always been a wiseass.

“Give me a minute, Hall, and I’ll see what we can do to get you out of here.”

Tony left him in the room alone and stepped outside. Holland was well aware that someone was watching on the other side of the glass. He imagined it was whatever pair of detectives had been assigned, and wondered if they knew what he’d done. Probably. Let them judge. He deserved it.

He didn’t realize he’d dozed off until Tony was shaking his shoulder.

“Your stories check out,” he said, patting Holland on the back. “You and Jackson are free to go, but, Hall, you and Holly should stay in a hotel for a while, until we sort this out. Until we know what’s going on, there’s a possibility this guy could come back.”

Holland swallowed dryly and looked at him, “Should we… should we have, like, an escort or something? You know?”

Tony shook his head and dismissed him. “Nah. It’s just a precaution. You call us though if you see anything suspicious. We’ll get someone out to you right away.”

Great. Add that to the list of major anxieties crushing down on him. His stomach turned a little, but he realized with a surprise that he was almost too exhausted to panic. Almost. At least Healy was around. Holland had seen him beat the everliving shit out of a bonafide hitman, so he was going to pin his hopes on the idea that Jackson would keep Holly safe. And. You know. Keep him safe too.

* * *

Holly offered to drive as they were walking away from the station, since she’d had the most sleep. March was heavily inclined to take her up on the offer, but Healy declined. He did let her ride shotgun, however, and Holland climbed into the back and laid down across the seat the way Healy had been sleeping before. He could see why. It was pretty plush back there.

“It’s a good thing you’re the world’s worst detective, Dad,” Holly said casually as the late morning breeze tousled her hair.

“Hey.” Holland grumbled, not getting up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I overheard the cops talking and,” she smiled a little, “they said some lady across the street from the Meyer house had called in to report two suspicious characters in a beat-up brown mercedes. She said they’d been there all night, and the night before that… and the night before that. They said she described you perfectly. She was your alibi.” She giggled.

Healy laughed out loud. “I fuckin’ told ya,” he said, slapping the wheel gently. “Discretion.”

Holland groaned and turned on his side, pulling the Dodgers cap down over his eyes once more.

* * *

 

“Well,” said Jackson, “There’s nothing for it. We’re gonna have to take matters into our own hands.”

It was two days later, a Sunday. The Lord’s Day, as Janet would call it. Holland was so fucking glad they’d never have to see her whiny ass again. He was also glad to be reunited with his old friend Booze, and to have slept for 16 hours straight. He’d already stashed a new bottle of Jack in the glove box of the car so he wouldn’t run out again.

They were gathered in the Hotel lobby where March and Holly were staying while the investigation continued.

Holland nodded absently, stubbing out a cigarette in the ash tray. He ran his thumb over his lips in thought and sort of stared at nothing, eyes unfocused.

“You mean we’re investigating this ourselves,” Holly confirmed, sipping at her orange juice.

“No, _‘we’_ are not doing anything,” Holland cut in. “Why are you hanging out around here anyway? Go… swim or something. It’s a hotel. Have fun.”

“I could help!” she pleaded. Begging in vain to be a part of their work was starting to feel pretty normal for her, almost an obligation at this point. “People don’t suspect a teenager to know anything!”

“Yeah?” Holland asked, raising his eyebrows. “Well they don’t. Know anything.”

Holly turned to Healy, as if he were the only reasonable adult present. “Just let me know if you guys need anything,” she said to him, “I’ll be in the wings.”  She grabbed her backpack and departed toward the room.

Healy nodded once at her and grabbed her abandoned orange juice, taking a swig. “What’s eating you, March?”

“Huh? Oh. Nothing. I don’t know.”

“Nope. We’re partners. You’ve got some kind of hunch… some kind of sense about something, you share it with me. Don’t keep me in the dark.”

Holland tapped his pinky ring against the beer bottle nervously for a minute before taking a long draw. “Tony.”

“Yeah?”

“He’s acting… like… like a friend.”

“That’s horrible.”

“No, it is. It is… I mean this guy. When Rose died, he fucking made some kind of joke about me just needing to get laid to get over it. I mean, like, the _day_ after she died.”

Healy considered that for a moment, then answered genuinely, “That’s... pretty insensitive.”

“Yeah? I mean, I almost. Almost was okay with it. You know. Until he followed it up by sending a stripper to my house.”

“Shitfuck,” Healy swore, shocked.

“I mean, thank god that Holly didn’t answer the door when she showed up, all… I think she was dressed like a... sexy nun? The stripper, that is.” He shook his head. “I mean, not that she wasn’t good looking and all, but…”

Healy gave him a look.

“Anyway, that day ended in me drinking a handle of Jack, driving over to his house, and socking him in the face so hard I broke my hand.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah, well. He spent the next month with his jaw fucking wired shut. So I think I won that round.”

Healy was quiet then, marveling at what March equated with a win.

“Anyway, all of this to say that the guy is not… well, he’s not that guy we saw yesterday.”

“People change,” Healy suggested half-heartedly, but there was something in March’s voice that told him this was a sure thing. That this Sergeant Maldonado was hiding something. It didn’t sit well. He wasn’t a fan of having enemies in the force.

“Not this fucking guy.”

“So what do we do? What’s our move?”

Holland tapped the beer bottle again, then emptied it. He stood up abruptly and slapped his aviators on. “Fuck it. I’m just gonna ask him.”

Healy considered it for a moment, looking him up and down. He looked steadier, now that he’d had some sleep. And some booze. “You think he’ll talk?”

Holland shrugged, pulling a cigarette out of his coat pocket. “Maybe,” he said. “Can you stay with Holly?”

Healy nodded, smiling. “Can do,” he said. Wanting to feel more useful, he stood up too and pulled his jacket on. He wasn't sure why. It was upwards of 90 outside. “Look, I might as well head over to the library and use the microfilm readers. Look through the old newspapers, see if anything clicks far as shootings or burglaries around here recently.”

March gave his friend a grateful nod. He hated that part, and was relieved that he had someone else who could help him with these things now. It was LA, and looking through the crime blotters for something that fit a particular pattern was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

“Okay if I take Holly with me?”

“To the fucking library?” Holland laughed. "Yeah, just let me sign her permission slip.”

“Alright, alright,”Jackson grumbled, rolling his eyes. “You can quit busting my balls over it. God forbid I respect your position as a father.”

Holland considered this for a moment, and then shrugged. “I trust you, man. Just don't take her to, I dunno. A car show or whatever.” He grinned and walked out.

* * *

Holly’s face was glued to the newspaper in front of her, bless her little heart, so beside herself with glee at actually being included in the investigation, and trying so hard not to show it. She may be an exceptional teenager, but she was a teenager none the less, and as such, had a duty to maintain a bit of a cool exterior.

Healy didn't have the heart to tell her they were on shit detail when it came to detective work.

He had chosen to work the microfiche duty, sitting at the only machine in the library, and he was getting a little carsick watching the articles fly by, not to mention the encroaching migraine he always got when he read for too long. He'd stuck with these dime store granny reading glasses for years, fighting the admission that he really needed to be wearing specs full time like his pop.

Sitting here now, thinking about his future with Holland and needing to be a functional partner in a detective business, he thought he might be ready to throw in the towel and see a fucking optometrist.

The articles were all starting to look the same, fuzzy lines of the same four paragraphs. A break in here, a stick up there, gang violence. A murder or two that he suspected were domestic in nature. No dumped bodies or dismemberments that smacked of mob activity. At least not in the last few months.

The body at the March house had made it to the papers, not surprisingly, and Healy wondered what kind of relationship Holland had with his neighbors. The new house was just a block away from the rental that had been nearly razed to the ground by gunfire just last year, then there was the fire at the old place the year before that, and now this. So yeah, it was in the paper, a fuzzy little photo of the house with the crimescene tape around it, and a coroner’s van in the shot. The article was pretty much devoid of any interesting information, and was fairly short. It noted a “body found,” didn’t mention March or himself (for which he was eternally grateful), and made the unnecessary statement that ‘the police were investigating.’ As if they wouldn’t. Then he thought about Judith Kutner and the DOJ, and thought, _Well, I guess sometimes they really don’t._

“Healy!” Holly whispered excitedly. She'd been calling him that for a while now. He'd insisted she call him something other than ‘Mr. Healy,’ which made him feel a million years old. She’d opted to go with what her father called him, which made her feel like part of the team.

He gratefully took the distraction and pulled his chair up beside hers. “Whadda we got,” he asked, his eyes already squinted, trying to at the paper. “The obits, huh? Good call.” _Why didn’t I think of that?_

“I mean, I thought _maybe_ it would be a little too early for someone to have sent an obituary,” she was saying, not able to resist sharing her thought process with him, “You know, with them needing to identify the body, notify next of kin and stu– and… well. Anyway, _someone_ knew who it was right away because look!”

She tapped on one tiny paragraph on the page, and handed it to him. She studied the way Jackson pulled his chair even closer, brought the reading glasses up to his eyes and then moved them further and closer away, squinting. After a couple more adjustments, the words came into focus:

 

_WILLIAM HAGGARTY_

_1937-1978_

_Friends mourn William Haggarty, proud veteran and talented private investigator, who passed away early this Friday. William was a man who paid attention to detail and gave everything for his work._

 

Healy sat back thoughtfully, tucked his readers back into his shirt pocket, handed the paper back to Holly, and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. Holly looked proud of herself and was practically twitching with anticipation to find out what he would have to say about her discovery.

“He died Friday morning,” he remarked, putting the pieces together, “and they don’t say how, and they say he ‘gave everything’ for his work, like he was killed in the line of duty. Or at least, that’s implied”

She nodded, clearly waiting for him to go on.

“And I didn’t find any articles from Friday or Saturday about any cops or PI’s getting killed on the beat,” he went on.

She kept nodding, smiling widely, and Healy thought about how morbid it was that they were bonding over this obituary, putting together puzzle pieces over a grisly murder that took place a few feet away from where she laid her head at night. But the truth was, he just always enjoyed bonding with her no matter what the circumstances, and he couldn’t believe she was interested in spending any time with him.

With June, they’d talked about kids right at the beginning of their marriage, but by the time the honeymoon was over, she was distant and cold, and started taking birth control to “help manage her difficult menstrual cycle,” as she’d put it, ensuring that he wouldn’t want to talk about it any further. After a year of marriage he had completely discounted the idea of ever having offspring. After two years, he hated himself so much he assumed that no child would ever want to be around him anyway, and what did it matter. They’d just end up like him.

But with Holly, he was constantly impressed by her intelligence, her wit, and her deep emotional strength. She was almost fourteen, and had been through so much, but she still believed in human kindness and justice. He wondered where she’d managed to pick that up.

“It’s so impersonal,” Holly added, bringing him out of his thoughts and back into the conversation at hand. “Like, whoever wrote it didn’t know him very well.”

“And it says ‘friends,’ instead of ‘family,’ and doesn’t list who he’s survived by,” it was something Healy had thought about before, in regards to his own obit, which he had, until recently, always assumed would be just a couple of years down the line. If anyone bothered to write him up (he hadn’t talked to his brother or father in a couple of years), what would they say about him except his name and a pair of dates? “So he was probably single, no family… which means they wouldn’t have anyone to notify.”

“Exactly,” Holly said. “It just feels right, doesn’t it?”

He nodded, “It does. I mean, it makes sense for an ongoing investigation… they can’t really release much to the press until they get more information, but if he’s friends with someone on the force, they’d want to acknowledge him somehow.” He looked over at Holly and grinned, “Good work, kid. I think you just identified our corpse.”

She grinned back, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I told you I could help.”

“I never doubted it. Until we hear from your Dad, we should keep looking… see if we can find anything on this Haggarty guy in the papers. Maybe learn a little more.”

She nodded, still beaming, and Healy went back to his seat.

He took a deep, steadying breath before leaning forward and bringing the specs back up to his face. He wished he had dramamine. He was scanning his first article when he felt the quiet stare from Holly, and he looked up at her with a question in his eyes.

“You should get _real_ glasses,” she said. “You’re going to give yourself a migraine.”

He smiled softly and put the specs back in his shirt pocket. “I.. uh..”

She looked like she wanted to say something, but was struggling with whether or not to spit it out. He wasn’t sure what to do.

“I. You know. I don’t think it’s so bad. I’ve got my readers and all,” he offered.

“Mom wore glasses. She’d had them since she was ten years old, she told me,” she said, deciding to say it.

Healy froze a little, trying not to spook her while she was talking. He’d been here before with her. She trusted him with these memories. He wondered if she talked about these things with Holland too, and was suddenly pained when he realized that the answer was probably no. He couldn’t imagine that Holland was ever in the right state of mind to receive this kind of conversation.

“She wore these horn-rimmed cat’s eye glasses,” she went on, “And they weren’t really in style, but she said that when she was a little girl in London, she’d seen a picture of Marilyn Monroe wearing glasses like that, and decided those were the ones for her.”

Healy still didn’t quite know what to say, but tried his best, “She must have been very beautiful.”

She smiled, all joyful memories playing through her head, no room for sadness, which Healy couldn’t quite grasp. How could she stay so positive? “She was,” Holly agreed. “More than that, though, she was just. Cool. Like she didn’t care what anyone thought. She wanted to have cat’s eye glasses, so she did. There were little pearl inlays in the corners.” She looked off to the side dreamily, as if she could still see her. “Anyway. You should get glasses, Healy. They’re cool.”

He let out an amiable chuckle and nodded. “Duly noted,” he said.

“And my Dad loves them,” she added quickly, throwing him for a loop.

 _That last part was a bit weird,_ he thought, then pulled his notepad out of his pocket and wrote “optometrist” at the top of a fresh page.


	3. The Case

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> March finds out what they're dealing with.

It would’ve been the least they could do to let March wait in the staff lounge instead of the waiting room with the gaggle of cretins out here. So what if they hated him. He didn’t deserve to be rotting out here with the rest of the unwashed masses. He imagined the place smelling like it used to– like piss and puke and stale beer. He didn’t miss it. But he didn’t like being shut out, either.

He’d been waiting for well over an hour, trying to busy himself with a worn-out old copy of _Even Cowgirls Get the Blues_ he’d found under the seat in the back of the car, but his attention wasn’t really on it. He was trying to decide if it was the smart thing to do to lead with an apology for the broken jaw, or to just pretend it never happened.

The more time that passed, the more nervous he got about it. Now, in the harsh light of day, at his baseline level of buzzed, his mind was chewing over the interaction with Tony from the morning of the murder.

Before he’d fully decided what he was going to do, Tony appeared in the doorway, looking… well… not pleased. But “not pleased” in a weird way that Holland couldn’t quite read. It almost looked like he might be sad, or disappointed in Holland in some way.

Holland stood up, cramming the paperback into the inside of his jacket. He tried to maintain confidence despite the fact that he was still wearing the same clothes for the third day in a row now. At least he’d chosen a dark suit for the stakeout. It showed less wear.

“Hiya,” he said. “Mind if we talk?”

Tony’s brow furrowed and he stepped forward to get close to Holland. At 6’6 and 215, all muscle, he was definitely intimidating at this distance. Holland hadn’t thought of it until now. “Yeah, I fucking mind,” Tony said, his voice low so that no one else could hear. “What the fuck are you doing here, Hall?”

Holland swallowed and straightened himself up as tall as he could, responding in an equally quiet voice. “You’ve gotta talk to me, Tony. This shit is weird. _You’re_ weird. Acting weird.”

Tony glanced over his shoulder. One of the rookies behind the reception desk had his eye on them, so Tony took a step back. He smiled, a mask coming over his face. “I promise to call you when we have something to report,” he said, a little louder.

Holland scratched his head, noticing the behavior change, and tried to plan his next move. Tony cut into his thoughts by speaking again.

“What book are you reading?” he asked out of nowhere, gesturing toward Holland’s coat.

Holland stammered something incomprehensible, trying to get words out, then responded, “That Tom Robbins book from a couple years back… about the girl with the thumbs…”

Tony chuckled, but it was sort of shallow sounding. He reached out a hand, as if he wanted to hold the book and said, “Yeah, the chicks in that guy’s books… so hot.”

Unsure where this was going, but curious enough to see it through, March pulled out the novel and handed it to Tony, who was taking out a pen.

“Mind if I write in it?” he asked, already doing so. “I wanna mark this one spot you _gotta_ read.” He scribbled something in the margin in the middle of the book, then closed it and handed it back to Holland. He tucked the pen back into his lapel and started to turn around. “Always good to see you, Holland,” he said, already practically back through the security door.

“Uh, thanks?” Holland replied to the closing door, realizing that was all he was going to get.

*

He waited until he was in the car to open the book back up, thumbing through it quickly, trying to find the page that Tony had marked. On it was a quick, barely legible note:

 

tarpits

Mon 12p

Alone

* * *

 

“You _have_ to let me tail you, at the very least,” Jackson was reasoning. The three of them were sitting in Healy’s cramped apartment, eating burritos and catching up with each other on the day’s discoveries, as limited as they were. Healy and March sat side by side on the couch and Holly lounged in the armchair across from them, sitting with her back against one arm and her legs slung over the other.

March had been delighted to find out about Holly’s catch on the obits, and had to agree that it felt like the right fit as far as an ID for their dead guy. Holland considered Jackson’s offer to follow him in a separate car for the meet at La Brea with Tony. “Seems smart,” he admitted, not one for unnecessary heroics. “What about Holly?”

“What _about_ me?” she asked, crumpling up the last of the tin foil from her burrito and lobbing it at him. “I can hang back with Healy in the car behind you.”

“No.” Holland looked at Healy, “Who’s gonna stay with her if you’re my backup?”

“I don’t _need_ anyone to stay with me,” she stated firmly, careful not to whine. “I ID’ed the body, guys, that’s _gotta_ count for something.”

Jackson gave Holland a look, nodded slightly, eyebrow raised, as if he agreed with her point. Holland definitely noticed. He looked from Jackson back to Holly and threw up his hands. “Ugh, fine. You can stay at the hotel. But seriously, stay at the hotel, Holly. I’ll be checking the trunk.”

She eyed him, trying to decide if she was pleased with this outcome. She nodded once. “Deal.”

“Fucking summer vacation,” he mumbled. “Okay, so now that that's sorted out. What else did you guys find?”

Jackson flipped through his notebook. “Not much,” he remarked, looking at his own chicken scratch. “Guy wasn't a great PI, far as I can tell. At least, not a particularly busy one. We checked the public records that were available.”

“Never married, no kids,” Holly added. “As we suspected. Served in the military. Went to Vietnam.”

“Survived fucking vietnam, only to get shot on the crapper at some stranger's house,” Jackson grunted.

“ _This_ stranger's house,” Holland reminded him.

Jackson went on, “Other than that, he grew up not far from here… in Camarillo. Up in Ventura County.”

“Wait,” Holland stopped him. “That's where Tony was working, up until last week.”

Jackson looked back down at the notebook, as if to confirm he'd read his notes correctly, then back up at March. “Could be a coincidence,” he suggested, but his gut told him there was a connection, even if on their first meeting the guy had seemed mostly harmless, other than being, you know. A douchebag. There was just too much that didn't add up.

“Well, looks like you've got something else to ask him about when you see him tomorrow.”

* * *

 

Holland's hands were shaking again. He took a sip off the flask and then jammed his fists in his pockets, looking around for Tony.

There was a kid trying to poke a stick under the railing around the tar pit, and another kid was crying, traumatized by the giant plaster mammoth drowning in the bog.

He started to wonder if Tony was going to show, until he caught sight of him, casually striding toward March, a manila envelope tucked under one arm. He was wearing a black bomber jacket and dark jeans, his normally perfectly-coiffed blond hair hidden by a ball cap and his his ruggedly handsome face half-obscured by aviators.

“Christ,” Holland muttered to himself, observing the get-up. It was so paranoid-looking, he was surprised he himself wasn’t in an identical outfit. It was definitely a tactic he’d used before. It also freaked him out, all this cloak and dagger.

“What the _fuck_ Tony,” he hissed, when Maldonado was close enough to hear him. “What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck.”

Tony raised his hands midway and then lowered them in the ‘calm-down’ motion that Holland was fairly used to getting from… well. Everyone. “Keep it together, Hall,” he said gruffly, “Don’t be such a fucking spaz.”

“Me?” Holland laughed sharply, “ _Me_ a fucking spaz. That’s rich. And what the fuck are you right now, with this disguise shit? Cool and fucking collected? What the fuck is going on and I mean, fucking right now you better tell me.”

Tony shushed him. “I’ll tell you,” he said. Glancing around, taking stock of the surroundings.

“Why are you late? I almost booked it.”

“I had to make sure I wasn’t being followed… took kind of a… circuitous route to get here.”

“Followed? Shit.”

Tony looked like he still didn’t want to talk, and kind of scratched his head as if he were going to stall some more. “Huh, you know, I haven’t been here since they opened that new museum last year,” he commented. So stalling it was.

“I swear to fucking _Christ_ , Tone, I will break your goddamn jaw. Again.”

That got his attention. Not that Holland was nearly drunk or irrational enough to muster up that kind of courage again, but Tony didn’t have to know about that. In Holland’s experience it was all about the bark, not the bite. Especially if you’d managed to get a lucky bite in once before.

Tony’s eyes flashed with what could be mistaken for fury, but Holland saw something else. Shame? Maldonado swallowed once before speaking again. “I didn’t want you involved in this, Hall.” He lit a cigarette with a shaky hand, and motioned to a park bench where they could sit and talk. March followed him, both directionally and in action, lighting up a cigarette of his own. “It’s a fucking doozy, and I didn’t want to put you in harm’s way.”

“What’s this about, Tone?”

“Well, short story? I’m on the fucking take,” he said. His shoulders were a little more relaxed now, as if he was finally resigned that this was going to have to be the way of things. Holland was involved now, and there was nothing he could do about it except give him information.

“ I fucking _knew_ it!” Holland claimed. “I fucking _knew_ no one could be that goddamn straight.” He combed back through his memory to try to figure out how he had missed it. Plenty of time to figure it out later. “And the long story?”

“Your case.”

“Which case? Detroit?”

Tony looked confused for a moment, then realized what he was talking about. “Oh yeah. I heard about that. No. Not Detroit. Your current case.”

March had completely forgotten. “The _peeping tom_?” he asked, incredulous.

“Ha. Is that what they told you.”

“Fuck.” Fucking lying clients. He needed to stop trusting people just because they paid him. He and Jackson had done some very preliminary research on Jill and old Harry, but nothing very deep, preferring just to get started on what they presumed would be a feel-good knock out of the park. Well, mental note. Full scale background checks on every person that rang the line, from the kid looking for his lost dog to the old lady looking for her goddamn car keys. Not that those were the kind of cases, they specialized in, but you get the idea. “So who the fuck are they?”

“They’re gun runners.”

“Gun runners?”

“Like, dealers. Like, selling them. Drugs too.” Tony thought for a moment, “Well, _she_ isn’t. He is. A gun runner. She’s, you know… Jilly Horner. Short-lived nudie mag career.” He paused to take a drag off the cigarette. “I found out about this a couple of years ago, before I went to Ventura County. I tried to let it go, to take the cash and the promotions and forget it, but I couldn’t.” He handed March the envelope.

Tony walked him through it, March trying to take notes as well as he could on the margins of the documents.

“Not long after you… left the department,” Tony said, taking a deep breath, “I was doing alright for myself and everything, coming up in the ranks when I could, going from beat cop to detective and whatnot. They put me in vice, right, and I’m working this case with the county, a real fucking big one, and the ATF and the DEA get involved and we’re all working together and it looks real good, especially after the whole Breydo thing. We needed a win and we got one. We land this big collar. A guy out in Malibu, running a coke operation that distributed all over the fucking place. Mostly in LA, but the guy had shit going up to San Francisco, and back down to San Diego, and even across the border to Arizona and Nevada, and who fucking knows where else.”

Holland cut in, surprised at what he was hearing. “ _You_ were on the Koenig case? That fucking druglord that was in the news?”

Tony nodded, “Yeah. I was part of it. Part of the team anyway,” he stubbed out his cigarette on the bottom of his shoe.

“Fuckin’ A,” he remembered reading about that case. And he remembered reading about... “Wait. The shoot-out.”

“Yes,” Tony said gravely. “Joe Finley, one of my guys, a good man, took a bullet in the head and never got to see his kids again. Koenig went down in a blaze of bullets, and then, according to the brass, that was that. Everybody pack up and go home. But that _wasn’t_ that, Hall, that’s what’s wrong with it.

I _knew_ Koenig had a partner. Someone on the same level as him, supplying the guns. Real exotic shit, like, top-of-the-line Korean and German shit I’ve never seen on the streets before. We cleaned out Koenig’s operation, kept dogging his foot soldiers until they were all arrested or turned state’s evidence… but no one seemed to want to know.”

“So they stopped looking,” Holland said.

“Yep.” Tony nodded slowly. “But I didn’t. And I found this guy. This fucking guy that seemed to be in all the right places at all the wrong times, and he had a fortune to boot. Harold Meyer, fucking businessman. And when I took it to the brass, they said they already knew. They offered me… they offered me a meet with him, said they’d straighten it out. It was just a misunderstanding.

It was two choices. Money, or death. I mean, Hall. I’ve got no one. I go missing… you know, out on a case or something. Who knows? I knew it wasn’t a choice, and for the first time, being a goody two shoes wasn’t… it wasn’t fun anymore. It wasn’t about feeling superior, feeling better than… it just seemed. It seemed stupid. So I took the money. I was fucking terrified.

And then one day, out of the fucking blue, Sara Finley comes to see me. Sara fucking Finley. Joe’s wife. And she says to me, _Tony, thank you._ And I’m like _Thanks for what? For letting your husband get shot and not making anyone pay?_ Only I don’t say that, I’m just standing there, like an asshole while she thanks me for my part in getting Koenig. It took her a year after her husband died to even be able to talk about him, and she comes to thank me.

I wanted to nail Meyer for his part in it, but what could I do now? I’ve taken the money, I’m part of the conspiracy… they’d erase me before I could turn state’s. And to be honest, I don’t think I have the fucking backbone for it anyway. So I filed away what I could, hoping that someday I’d have the guts to confess.”

Holland stared down at the cigarette in his hand, half of it ash by now. It was a lot to process, and all so fast. What a goddamn mess. And here he was, getting it handed to him like a baton. Or a lit stick of dynamite. Then he remembered.

“Then who the fuck is Bill Haggarty?”

Tony was crestfallen. He turned about twenty different colors, his face finally settling on an ashen gray. “You knew who he was?”

“We figured it out,” March said, unabashedly sharing the credit. Genetics and everything. “Why was there a dead PI in my bathroom, Tony.”

“He wasn’t supposed to be there,” Maldonado said, sounding like he might cry at any moment. “I hired him to keep tabs on Harry Meyer. He was just supposed to watch and report. I met him while I was working in Camarillo.” He gazed down at his shoes. “I guess he must have found out you here working with the Meyers and, I dunno, decided to investigate you himself.”

Holland ran it through in his head. “Okay. Okay.” It occurred to him. “Then he _was_ the peeping tom, after all. Fuck. So who the fuck shot him?”

“One of Harry’s goons, I’m sure.” Tony felt in his jacket for his own booze and took a swig. “I got him killed. I put that idiot on a case that was too big for him and now he’s fucking dead.  I sent in an obit that afternoon. Guy didn’t have any family, any friends. Just a guy trying to make a living for himself, you know. A lonely guy.”

“And you weren’t gonna tell me about him.” He didn’t have to ask why. Tony had already admitted it. He got the guy killed, he felt damned and cursed forever, and there was no use in discussing it or admitting it to anyone anymore. It was done.

“I’m sorry,” Tony offered. “But now you’re in it, and I still don’t have what it takes to stop it.”

Holland laughed bitterly. “Thanks. Glad my life is on the line for this horse shit now too.”

“Nothing to do for it. I wish you weren’t. Bill went to your house, their people followed him there.”

“Why. Why would they think I’m in on it?” It was a rhetorical question. He knew the answer. But he let Tony answer anyway.

“Well, it’s just your shit luck, you know? It’s just you, isn’t it?” Tony chuckled mirthlessly. “You’re my friend. They’ll connect Bill to me if they haven’t already, and then they’ll connect _you_ to me and now it’s just a matter of time. It’s just pure fucking shit luck that Jill Meyer looked in the phone book and called your number.”

March could feel that queasy stomach, that dry throat, that icy wash running from his face and down into his gut.

“Fuck,” he swore. He _had_ to stop getting involved in messes like this. They sat in silence for a while longer, their cigarettes long ash. They both drank some more, and March forced himself not to look for Healy’s car, lest he draw attention to it. He numbed himself, tried to imagine what Rose would say if she was there. How would she calm him?

And then, to his surprise, his mind conjured up Healy, just as if the man was sitting on his other side on the bench, and he suddenly felt more steady. He scratched his chin, then looked over at Tony.

“Fuck you, man. How did you go from being a completely straight arrow and a total asshole to being a crooked motherfucker and all-around nice guy?”

Tony chuckled in spite of himself. “Guilt I guess,” he admitted. “It’ll humble you.” He turned to Holland and looked him in the eyes. “I’m sorry. You know. For–”

March cut him off. “Me too. Same. Let’s just… it seems stupid now.”

Tony nodded, staring off towards the museum.

“Let me ask you something, since we’re here,” March said. Curiosity was all that was keeping him here now. There wasn’t really anything else he could hope to get from Tony.

“Shoot,” Tony said.

“Why did you stick by me?” He asked. “When I got the boot. You were the only one who still talked to me. Why?”

Tony looked at him thoughtfully. “You were kind of an asshole, but in this, like, charming way that made me feel something. The other guys were just assholes. And I admired you in a way. I mean, we were just beat cops, you and I, but you were. You are. So smart. And…Well… I thought... you were the way you were… you know… that you were an asshole to everyone because you were lonely. Because you were…” he paused, seemingly at a loss. “I thought you were like me?”

“What do you mean? Like you? I was taking cash, planting evidence. You were Golden Boy.”

“No. I mean. Like me.” He fixed Holland with a pointed look. Nothing. “I thought you would understand.”

March shook his head, still confused.

“Never mind,” Tony said, a sad smile on his face. “It doesn’t matter.”

* * *

 


	4. The Investigation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trio begins their work, trying to piece together the case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU THANK YOU to everyone for the extremely flattering comments. I am so glad people are enjoying it, and hope I don't let you down. You have no idea how much it means to me to hear from you guys.  
> *

They changed hotels that night, opting for one way the hell out in Chino, of all fucking places, but, as Holland had told Janet’s mother, “Safety first.” March had also talked Healy into taking the room next to theirs. He used Holly as an excuse, not mentioning that he himself needed the reassurance.

Jackson had gone home, packed his remaining fish into a glass bowl that was a little more portable, grabbed more ammo and some clothes, then locked the place up, not knowing when he’d get back.

March and Holly wouldn’t have been able to go back to their place for new clothes even if they’d wanted to, so they’d just gone to Ohrbach’s for some new duds and some provisions. They were kind of used to being displaced at this point, but Holland hoped that they’d figure this shit out soon. This case was going to start costing them more than it made. At least he’d talked Healy into taking way too much on the initial payment from the Meyers, and then, when he’d asked for more, he’d padded that a little too. The Meyers were loaded, after all, and, now that it was basically a fact that they were criminal scum, what was there to feel bad about?

*

“You just chose this place because of the bar, right?” Holly asked from her position sitting cross-legged on the hotel room’s shag rug. She was fiddling with the new cassette player Holland had given her, the latest in the long line of I’m-a-bad-father-so-here-you-go consolation prizes she’d come to take in stride.

He sneered at her petulantly. He was seated on the edge of the bed, Healy at the tiny dinette. They were poring over the meager casefile that Tony had dropped on them. Sure, Tony had fed them some information, but there was almost nothing of substance in the notes he had handed off. They were basically operating solely on Tony’s word, which, Holland admitted, was not the most reliable thing in the world. “I _chose_ this place,” he explained, “Because it is in fucking Chino. The ass-end of the known universe, where their main attraction is the goddamn state prison. No one’s looking for us out here.”

“Yeah, and it’s just a fucking coincidence that they have the most comprehensive collection of whiskey I’ve ever seen in my very long life,” Healy remarked, not looking up from his reading.

The plastic-rimmed glasses he had chosen were surprisingly sophisticated, Holland noted, studying him from the side. They were black, rounded on the bottoms and flat on top. Not quite aviators, but not your dated Buddy Hollys either. March remembered Holly talking about them going to an eye doctor the other day after they hit up the library and the records office. She must have helped with the frame selection. Healy wasn’t reading the page with his face an inch away from the words anymore. He was sitting up straight and looked comfortable. No squinting.

The way he looked was distracting somehow. Holland needed a cigarette and another drink. He helped himself to the former, and made a mental note to go down to the bar in a few minutes. “You got anything over there, Stevie Wonder?” It wasn’t his best, sure. But he had to diffuse things somehow and get the attention off his own inadequacies.

Healy shot him a look, then took the glasses off for a moment. Then put them back on determinedly and decided to ignore the comment. “I might, actually,” he said, slightly confrontationally. He held up the page he had been looking at. “He has notes in here about the Hells Angels maybe being customers…”

“And…” March said, “I’m sure they’re among good company with the rest of Meyer’s clientele.”

“Well. I know a guy. Who, you know. He’s a Hells Angel.”

“Ew,” March said, but he was interested, if not a little disgusted. “Know him how?”

Healy considered whether or not to answer. He looked down at Holly. She already knew he’d spent the better part of his life as a thug. No reason she couldn’t know this too. “We were in a work program together when we were younger. Fieldwork. Supposed to be some kind of reform program for young criminals.”

“Yeah. ‘Cause that worked.”

Fair point. “Anyway, I went on to, you know, my prolific career of busting skulls. Danny did the same, but instead of freelancing like I did, he joined the HAMC.”

“The _Hells Angels_?” Holland asked unnecessarily, incredulous. “Really.”

“Yikes,” Holly remarked.

Healy shrugged. “Yeah, not really my thing either.” He handed the slip of paper to March. Holly stood up and went to stand next to her father so she could see the report over his shoulder. Jackson went on. “It’s worth a shot. He’s certainly a misanthrope, but he always helped me out finding people. Usually it only cost me twenty, but sometimes, if he was high enough, he’d give me all kinds of info, no charge.”

Holland was shaking his head. “I dunno… those guys are… I mean. They’re… you know. Dangerous? Right?”

Holly and Jackson ignored his babbling. “Where do we find him?” Holly asked, and when both men glared at her suddenly, both simultaneously taking a breath to speak, she rolled her eyes, “Fine. Where do _you_ find him then, while I sit here watching TV being bored out of my mind?”

“I know of a couple of places we can look,” Healy said.

“And don’t get too excited about the TV,” Holland interjected. “I want you doing research, helping on this.”

“Really?” She asked, brightening.

“Yeah. Really. We’ll drop you at the library downtown while we… whatever, look for this upstanding citizen.”

She was already putting her shoes on.

* * *

 

They took Jackson’s car, having stowed the Mercedes in a lot across town until this whole thing blew over, and dropped Holly off at the library with specific instructions not to talk to anyone.

“Including the librarian,” March had cautioned.

“Thanks, Dad,” she said sarcastically, “I’ll try not to get into too much trouble at the library.”

Healy smirked, but said, “Listen to your dad,” anyway. You had to have your partner’s back sometimes.

*

Now they were slowly inching their way down surface streets toward Venice Beach.

“He never really had one place he stayed,” Healy was saying. “These bikers tend to be kind of nomadic.”

Holland started to reach for the radio, and found the button was snapped off. He jabbed a finger at it and looked at Healy. “You weren’t kidding about the music thing, were you?”

“Ha,” he replied flatly. “No. I wasn’t. But I didn’t do that. June did. I just never got it fixed.”

March knew Healy had been married, and he also knew it ended pretty badly. There was cheating involved, and a falling out with family. He’d pieced it together, because Healy never really told him the whole story. He still seemed kind of raw about it, but in that dismissive way, like he wished it didn’t bother him. Some tough guy.

“So where _are_ we going then?” he asked, picking at some peeling paint on the door handle.

“He had a lady friend. Out here. He stayed at her place sometimes. You know. When he wasn’t staying with some other lady friend. Anyway, she’s alright. I’ve met her before.”

“She a friend?” Holland ask, trying not to sound too curious.

Healy shrugged. “I mean, I don’t think she’ll try to shoot us through the door, if that counts.”

“Good enough for me right now.”

*

“Let me do the talking, March,” Healy warned, speaking in almost a whisper as they approached the tiny cottage. They were at the “Casita Poet’s Cottages,” a small grouping of standalone studio apartments on the edge of Venice.

The place was small, but clean, with a chain link fence around the dead, dry grass and a couple of cactuses in pots under the front windows of every house. He looked at his partner, at the effortless mop of dark blond hair, the sort of finicky moustache and the little triangle of beard under his lip. The painfully loud paisley shirt, slim fit, was unbuttoned almost halfway down his chest, and Healy could see the wedding ring resting on his sternum. The rest of the suit was a sort of pastel mint green, like those chalky candies people always had in crystal bowls sitting out on the coffee table at dinner parties. Healy didn’t think the color went very well with March’s skintone, but what the fuck did he know about fashion? All he knew was that March was going to stick out like a sore thumb with these rough and tumble types, and that made him nervous.

“What. You think I’ll fuck it up?”

“Just. Don’t. Okay? This is my connection. I don’t want you burning my bridges.”

Holland put his hand over his heart. “I solemnly swear.”

“Swear what?”

“That I won’t take a shit in the middle of her living room.”

“That’s it. Get it all out before we interact with another human being.”

When he was satisfied that March was done fucking around, Healy opened the gate and led the way to the door. He knocked firmly and swiftly twice, and then waited.

“Yeah?” came a hesitant female voice from behind the still-closed door.

“Uh, hi Theresa, it’s Jack Healy…We met a couple years back, at that bike show in Vegas. I’m a friend of Danny’s.”

March stifled a laugh and wrapped Jackson’s shoulder with the back of his hand. “Vegas,” he mouthed silently at Healy, then “Jack.”

Healy ignored him, and was concentrating more on the silence on the other side of the door. They both waited a second, two, before the door opened slowly and revealed a tough-looking but gorgeous femme fatale. She was over six feet tall in her platform sandals, wearing pedal pushers and a red polyester halter top, with eyes the color of honey and a killer figure. She eyed them both, then seemed to decide to ignore Holland.

“It’s been awhile.” She said.

“Yeah, I. Uh. I had a career change recently,” Jackson said, scratching the back of his head. “I’m a private investigator now.” He gestured toward Holland. “This is my partner, Holland March.”

She didn’t immediately take her hands off the doorframe, slowly turning to acknowledge Holland. For moment he thought she might slap him, the way she was looking him up and down. Instead, she smiled knowingly out the corner of her mouth and extended her arm for a handshake. As she shook his hand, her eyes were back on Jackson.

“Private Eye, huh?” she said, and she leaned her hip against the doorframe, tilting her head toward him slightly. “I always knew you’d get a real gig someday, Jack.”

Jackson was old enough to know when he was being flirted with, and set enough in his ways to have none of it. “Have you seen Danny lately?”

She grabbed a pack of Marlboros off the table just inside the door and worked one out of the package as she talked to them. She shook her head. “It’s been a dog’s age.”

“Seven years?” Holland asked.

She looked at him like he had a third eye popping out of his forehead. “No. Like, a while. I dunno, maybe three or four months.”

“Dogs though. They’re like. You know. Seven years is one year.”

Jackson shook his head, “It’s an expression, March,” he said softly.

“But it’s specific, though.”

“Colloquialism.”

“Yeah, but..”

Theresa cut in. “You guys wanna come in for a minute, or do you need to work this out?”

They followed her inside and took a seat on the futon. She offered them a smoke, and March gleefully accepted. “So, Jack, what do you need Danny for?” she asked, handing her lighter to March.

“We're working a case. I don't think he's involved, but I think he can point me in the direction of someone who is.” Take the casual tack. Worked every time, in his experience. Put them at ease, like, hey, it’s no big deal, just some harmless info.

“You should just steer clear of Danny, if you ask me,” she said bitterly. “He's gone downhill.” She tapped her cigarette against the edge of the ashtray on the coffee table. “I mean, when was the last time you saw him, Jack?”

“A dog’s age?” March suggested, and Jackson gave him a warning look.

“Maybe a year?” Healy answered instead.

“Well,” She went on, “That’s long enough. He started in with that coke shit, and he’s just, completely fucking crazy. I mean, like, crazier.”

“Compared to what?” March asked, curious as to what kind of situation they would be getting into if they kept looking for Danny.

Jackson scratched his chin with his thumb and deliberately didn’t answer.

“Well, before the coke, he’d probably just be satisfied to kneecap you if he didn’t like your face. Now, there’s no telling. I feel like it’s just as likely he’d buy you lunch as slit your throat.”

March’s eyebrows knitted together and he took a long drag off the cigarette. That shut him up.

“We need to talk to him,” Healy insisted.

March cut in. “Nah, I mean,” he chuckled nervously, “Like you said, he’s probably not even involved…”

Healy, now long used to ignoring his partner’s anxious chatter, looked at Theresa and asked her, “How much do you know about what Danny does?”

She shrugged. “Whatever the fucking club tells him to,” she said. “He’s such a fucking asshole with those guys, and now, with the coke and all... I mean, I always knew about the other girls. Whatever. But it’s these _guys_ that bring out the rabid dog in him, with all their macho bullshit. He shoulda’ gone your way, Jack. Solo work. It was a good call.” She gave Jackson that adorable little crooked smile again. She had hair the color of dark chocolate, and warm, brown skin that seemed to sparkle in the mid-afternoon sunlight.

Jackson shook his head. “I thought so at the time,” he said.

She studied his face a minute and her tone softened. She reached out and squeezed Jackson’s shoulder lightly, and March looked away, stifling a chuckle at how acutely uncomfortable Jackson suddenly looked.

“You were always good, weren’t you, Jack?” She said kindly. “You were always working, always hustling. Always a stand-up guy. Not like Danny at all. That boy has no drive. Just fluff in his head.”

An awkward silence followed, and Holland took the opportunity to butt in. “So. Danny. Did he ever, I don’t know. Buy guns?”

Jackson looked at him then, making a pained face. _Discretion_ , he tried to will the thought into Holland’s thick skull.

Theresa squinted at March for a second, like she was trying to decide on something. Then she shrugged. “Sure. He was into them if that’s what you mean. They all are.”

“Yeah, but, did he ever buy guns from someone he shouldn’t have?”

“Like who? A stranger with candy in his pocket? I’m not sure what you’re getting at,” she shook her head at him, “I mean, these guys aren’t boyscouts.”

“Just wondering if he got them locally, or…”

She thought about it. “A few years back, he used to get all his shit from TJ,” she answered.

“Tijuana,” March translated to Jackson. “Mexico.”

Jackson rolled his eyes at him. “I’m from New York, not fucking Mars. I know what Tijuana is.”

“Yeah,” Theresa went on, chuckling at their bickering, “he used to go down there every couple of months for something. Every now and then it was guns, but mostly coke or weed. He always wanted me to go with him so I could translate for him, but he never convinced me. A couple years ago, he stopped asking. Why?”

Jackson finally spoke. “We think there’s a local guy putting some bad shit on the streets. Rich guy. White. We just wanted to know if there was any connection.” Might as well admit it now.

She considered it. “Yeah,” she said, a look of realization coming over her face. “I mean, there was this guy I used to see around at rallies and meets and stuff. Whenever he was around, the guys would always be handing him money, like they were paying him back or some shit. He would, like, wear these boring suits all the time, even at parties. Skinny, nerdy looking.”

Healy and Holland looked at each other.

“A little taller than me, maybe?” Holland asked, holding his hand just above his head. “Brown hair, glasses?”

She shook her head. “He had this thin, kind of corn-silk hair… it was like, almost white it was so blond. No glasses either, if I remember, but he had this nasty scar across the bridge of his nose. They used to call him ‘Snowy.’ Like that little dog in those kids’ books. The ones with the redhead. Anyway, if I had to guess, I’d say he was about your height.”

“You’re sure?” Jackson asked.

“Yeah, I remember because he looked like such a fucking narc. I couldn’t believe the guys would even talk to him. But they were definitely in some kind of business together.”

Holland chewed the inside of his lip. It sounded suspicious and was most definitely something illegal, but the physical description was all wrong.

“Look,” she said after a moment, the reality of the situation starting to dawn on her “I think, I think this guy is dangerous, and I’d appreciate it if you kept my name out of it when it comes down to it.” She reached over again and put her hand gently on Jackson’s knee. He flinched a little. “As a favor to me, Jack,” she pleaded.

Holland stood up, and Jackson immediately, gratefully, followed suit. March answered for him. “You got it, Sugar.”

* * *

 

The trio shared their respective findings over dinner in the hotel bar. Holly had cabbed from the library to the county clerk’s office, and between the two locations had found Jill Meyer’s (nee Horner) senior photo in a 1963 yearbook from Hollywood High, a copy of the property purchase in Beverly Hills in Jill’s name, the children’s birth records, an announcement of the Meyers’ wedding in the LA Times from five years ago, and a restraining order on file for some ‘fan’ who’d been stalking her and sending her creepy letters. Holly had swiped the yearbook from the special collections section and brought it with her, showing them the picture of Jill.

“I swear I’ll return it,” she said defensively, even though she could tell neither of them were particularly scandalized by her theft.

What she found odd, she told the guys, was that there seemed to be an abundance of information on Jill, and almost no records on Harold. It was as if he appeared out of nowhere in 1975 in Beverly Hills, no former address, no California driver’s license, not even a listing in the phone book. There was a business license for the Investment Firm, but most of it was redacted, which also struck her as unusual.

They told her about Theresa and what they’d learned from her, about Snowy.

“I’m surprised Tony didn’t mention this guy,” Holland was saying, “And there’s nothing about him in the notes he gave me either.”

“Right, and you’d think that if he’d found Danny, he’d know about this asshole,” Jackson agreed.

“He sounds like something out of a fucking dime novel, the way she described him,” March added, “Fucking platinum hair and a… a gash or whatever across his face?”

“Oh my God,” she said excitedly, grabbing the yearbook again. “Oh my god oh my god.”

“Spit it out, Honey,” March said.

She slapped the book down on the bar, then wrenched it open, flipping excitedly to a particular page from the Junior class of that year. She slammed her hand down on the page, flipped it around to face them, and pointed. They both leaned forward and saw what she was so excited about. Glaring back at them was a photo of their mystery man.

“Fuck,” Jackson swore. “That’s…”

“Jill Meyer’s kid brother,” Holly declared, and they all re-read the name under the photo again just to make sure.

_John Horner._

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *  
> My apologies to the city of Chino, CA, and to motorcycle gangs in general. I'm just trying to be accurate to the time period on how people saw/perceived things, and going with what I think the different characters' opinions would be.  
> *


	5. The Tussle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys get into it at a biker bar, following up on a lead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I edited the tags again.

“We can’t go right to him,” Jackson stated. He was cleaning the shotgun, an activity that calmed him. Knowing he was prepared.  After dinner they’d retreated back to his room to talk more and process what they had so far. “We need more info before we go up the ladder. It’s the smart move.”

Holland eyed him, then squinted. “But…”

“It’s also the right move,” Jackson confirmed before he could ask the question.

March nodded, somewhat relieved. Then he thought about it for a minute. “Aw. Shit. Does that mean…”

“You guys _gotta_ find Danny,” Holly answered.

March curled his lip distastefully. “So glad to have all my sentences finished for me,” he said, laying back across the hotel bed. The onion rings sat heavy and greasy in his gut, along with three beers and a rum and coke. There was an ominous grumble that he was sure both his companions could hear, and he burped. “Anyway. Happy Hour’s almost over, so we should probably start hitting those biker bars.” He sat up slowly, trying not to jostle too much.

He caught Jackson and Holly exchanging a look.

“Yeah, about that,” Jackson said, almost sheepishly, “I was thinking you should… you know. Change first.”

Holland leaned forward and put a hand delicately over his own sternum, his eyebrows raising. “ _I_ should change? _I_ should?”

“I mean, you won’t really... _fit in_ , Dad,” Holly said.

“You’re gonna take _his_ side?”

“I just think it might be safer… some of the places we’re going…” Jackson started.

“I can’t believe this shit. Seriously.” He stood up, walked over to the full length mirror on the back of the door and looked at himself. “I mean, I look good. I shouldn’t have to change.”

Healy sighed deeply. Yes. Yes he did look good. But Jackson had certain preferences that didn’t exactly jive with hardened criminals, and he kept them to himself. Maybe March could do the same.“Just. Something a little more, _casual._ ” He suggested. “Something that won’t get us… you know, shot.”

“Casual,” Holland said, eyeing Jackson with a deadpan stare. “Don’t you mean _discreet_?” He took off the mint sportcoat. “I don’t even know what I have that fits that description. I mean, when I went shopping the other day I had my mind on, you know… shit that looked good. Not… I dunno, leather chaps and fucking fringe vests.”

Jackson rolled his eyes. Holland was so dramatic. “I’m not talking about Easy Rider here, March. Just, maybe, get a pair of jeans for Christ’s sake.”

* * *

 

Jackson didn’t know anyone could be so fussy about casual clothes, but as they drove down the 10 toward the third bar of the night, he noticed March picking uncomfortably at the black jersey knit tee and the jeans he’d convinced him to buy. Jackson agreed that the boots Holland already had were actually a pretty good match for the outfit.

March just was who he was, fancy and a little vain, but still self-conscious in that charming way where he tried to pretend he meant it ironically.

Their first two stops had been fairly uneventful. They’d shown up, looked around, no Danny, and they left. Healy had saved the worst bars for last, so that March could get warmed up by the ease of the other two.

“I can’t believe Jill’s brother is in on this,” March was saying, his fear of silence kicking in. “I mean, I didn’t even know she had a brother. Do you remember seeing any pictures of him in the house or anything?”

Jackson shook his head no. “Yeah, we did not do our homework.”

“I’m telling you. The world is like, half liars and half crazy people.”

“Which are we?”

“What?”

“Liars or crazy people?”

March lit up a cigarette and spoke around it. “Crazy I guess.”

“Maybe.”

Holland tapped his fingers impatiently on his knee, looking a little twitchy. Jackson was surprised March wasn't falling asleep. He'd had a lot to drink.

The whole case so far worried Jackson deeply. He hadn’t gone too far into it with Holland, because, why would he need the headache of an even-more-anxious March, but they both knew that if Tony had known anything about this case, he would have known about John Horner. He chose not to disclose that. _Why._ Healy was still chewing on it when they pulled up to the bar.

A solid row of Harleys blocked the full view of the front of Betty’s, a ramshackle free-standing establishment with a corrugated steel roof. The filthy, yellowed windows would have been opaque even if they weren’t obscured by pasted-up newsprint and cardboard. Various uninviting graffiti symbols and slogans had been scrawled or painted onto the wood pillars holding up the front awning, and it looked like you might fall through the porch and into the dirt underneath if you didn’t watch your step.

“Wow,” Holland remarked as they passed by, looking for parking around the block. “You think they serve martinis?”

“I doubt they serve anything but skunk beer and hard liquor straight up,” Jackson said, patting his jacket to make sure he had his brass knuckles. “So don’t ask.”

As Jackson went to unbuckle his seatbelt, Holland suddenly reached out and grabbed his wrist. “Before we go in there, I wanna show you something,” he said.

“Uh...okay?”

Holland yanked up his left pantleg and revealed an ankle holster with a tiny little ruger tucked in it. He had an enormous, stupid grin on his face.

“Oooh, God,” Jackson moaned. “Are you fucking kidding me? How long have you had that?”

“Since after I talked to Tony,” Holland said, looking a little hurt. “I mean, I thought it would be a good thing to have. In case.”

“In case what?? In case you want to shoot yourself in the goddamn foot?”

Holland rolled his eyes. “Don’t be so twitchy about it,” he said, pushing his jeans back down. “You can’t deny it would have come in handy like, maybe twenty times when we were dealing with John Boy and the Detroit guys.”

Jackson nodded reluctantly. “Fine,” he said. “Just… Save it for an emergency, okay. And I mean, really, an emergency. Like. All other possible options are death. Even then.”

“I don’t understand what you’re worried about.”

“ _You,_ March. I’m worried about you. You just aren’t coordinated enough for the maneuvering it would take to draw that thing and actually come up shooting,” he reasoned.

“God. Relax,” March said, unbuckling his seatbelt and getting out of the car. “You’re the one who wouldn’t let me wear the shoulder holster tonight.”

“Let’s just get this over with,” Jackson said, getting out and locking the car doors. “Preferably _without_ anyone getting shot.”

The inside of the bar was loud, dark, and, though only Jackson could tell, stunk of cigars, weed, and road funk. They managed to slip in with minimal attention drawn to themselves, but they both definitely got the impression that they weren’t exactly welcome either.

The bartender had a puckered hole where his left eye should have been, his stringy dark grey hair braided and slung over his shoulder. Despite being half blind, he acknowledged them with an icy stare.

They tried to get a good look around without making any eye contact, and made their way to an empty spot at the bar. Jackson noticed that Holland was already starting to sweat, and took a deep breath himself, hoping that his equanimity would atmospherically transfer to his partner.

Old One-Eye took his sweet time, talking to the other patrons, willfully ignoring them for the first two minutes while they sat there. Jackson folded his arms and placed them on the bar, not looking at anyone. Holland sat straight up, his gaze kind of fixed on the ceiling, and he busied one hand with a cigarette, the other one he slipped in his pocket.

By the time the bartender came over to them, Holland was practically vibrating, basically a big ball of impatience and nerves.

“Whatever’s on tap,” Jackson ordered, wondering how in the world he was going to get away with not drinking that.

“Whiskey,” said March, trying to mirror Jackson’s tone of voice. He steadied himself. Looked at Healy sitting beside him, thought of the ankle gun. He took a deep breath, slowly, so that no one would notice. He stopped shaking for a moment and took some time to gather what he could visually.

Jackson, on the other hand, had been in a hundred places like this over the course of his career. He was well versed in watching people without really looking at anyone, and at making sure whatever business he had ended up being conducted outside, where the bouncer and the other patrons wouldn’t get involved. Business was different now. It was about sitting, talking, and gathering information, not waiting for someone to leave so you could jump them in the alley and shatter their jaw.

Danny was with a group of guys shooting pool on the other side of the room. Theresa hadn’t been kidding. He looked like shit run over… gaunt, pale, sweaty, his mousy brown hair a nest of knots and grime. Jackson figured meth was probably part of the equation too, based on how haggard the guy looked, his cheeks a little sunken like he was missing teeth. This was not a guy he wanted to have a conversation with, but it had to be done. They had to follow the lead.

Healy turned to March and said, “Stay here,” firmly, not taking his eyes off Danny.

Holland nodded nervously, following his gaze, his face a mess of concern and anxiety when he saw the person they’d been looking for. “Careful,” he said quietly, not arguing with the order to stay put. He downed the whiskey in one gulp and waved at the bartender for another.

Jackson steeled himself for the approach. Coked-up meth head or no, Danny still didn’t look as immediately horrifying as the diner maniac had, so he comforted himself with that. He started rehearsing what he was going to open with when he made it over to the guy.

Luckily he didn’t have to think of an ice breaker. Danny looked up as he approached, and, wild-eyed, broke into a toothy (mostly toothless) cheshire cat smile. “Jack?” He exclaimed, and his pool buddies all turned around simultaneously, stone faced, to inspect the intruder. “Jack! You motherfucker!” It was all manic joy in the guy’s voice, so Jackson would chalk it up to a good night so far.

Danny, still holding his pool cue in one hand, vaulted over the corner of the table, disturbing the layout of the balls, drawing some angry grumbles from his friends. Luckily they also seemed a little… under the influence, and their attention was mostly still too much on Healy to get truly angry. Yet.

He wrapped his arms around Jackson’s middle in a hug, the pool stick smacking Healy in the back of the head. It was a hug that would have been awkward if everyone had been sober, but because only Jackson was seeing things clearly, the strangeness was lost on the group.

“Hey Danny,” he said, smiling and gently extricating himself from the embrace. “Long time no see.”

“That’s fucking puttin’ it one way!” Danny said. He seemed to have one volume. Shouting. “Where the fuck have you been, man, I missed you!!”

“Yeah,” Jackson said, still very aware of the five very unfriendly-looking bikers standing like sentries behind Danny.

“Oh where are my manners? Huh?” Danny said, wiping his face with his hand. “Guys, this is Jack Healy. We go way back, man. Like, way back.”

Jackson gave them a nod. One or two of them nodded back ever so slightly, and none of them made a move to introduce themselves. They seemed to suddenly grow bored of the situation and went back to playing pool without Danny.

“Hey, you… wanna catch up?” Jackson offered.

Danny nodded crazily and just basically let go of the pool cue, letting it clatter to the ground. “Let’s grab us a table, man, shoot the shit.”  
“Great,” Jackson said. “I’m here with a friend of mine. We were just grabbing a drink to start off the night. Mind if he joins?”

“Yeah, man, the more the merrier!”

*

For once, March was being mercifully quiet. He looked like a parakeet trapped in a cage with a feral cat. His eyes did not leave Danny, as if the man would lunge over the table at any moment and strangle him if he looked away for a second.

Jackson couldn’t really blame him. Danny was a grenade with the pin pulled, and the conversation was going nowhere but in circles.

No useful information was coming out of his mouth, just absolute madness. He was talking about a ride the club had taken out to the desert last month to take peyote and get fucked up under the full moon. Then he was on to werewolves. Then some conspiracy theory about Jimmy Carter and the communist agenda. Then back to werewolves again.

 _Well this is a fucking disaster,_ Healy thought, wondering if the babbling would ever stop so he could get a word in edgewise.

Meanwhile, March had been drinking, and the more he drank, the less patient he got. Jackson was keeping track. Between the anxiety-riddled, prone-to-panic drunk on his left, and the criminally insane junkie in front of him, Jackson could feel the doomsday clock ticking. He had to derail this immediately, get some info, and then get them the hell out of there.

“Hey Danny,” he interjected when the conversation had deteriorated to an explicit and frankly nauseating description of Danny’s latest sexual exploit, “We’re kind of in some trouble and I was hoping you could help.”

Danny’s eyes went wider, and he got this intense look on his face. “Anything, man. Anything.”

“My friend here,” he tilted his head toward March, “is hoping to plan a little business up in San Francisco next week, needs some firepower.”

“Right on, man, right on,” Danny said, turning his bulging eyes toward Holland. March flinched ever so slightly under the man’s gaze.

Jackson was trying to keep his voice low, but Danny was so fucking loud. “He’s looking for something specific,” Healy said calmly.

“Oh man, you just tell me what you want, we can get it. No problem. Not a problem, no sir. We got all _kinds_ of shit,” Danny yelled, audible even over the jukebox.

Jackson noticed that the guys at the pool table had stopped playing pool again. They were looking at Danny now.

“That’s. That’s great,” Jackson said quietly, praying that Danny would drop his voice to his level. “We’re looking for one of those new LMGs, like that new Austrian one that came out this year.” He was quoting some of Tony’s notes on the types of guns that were suspected to have come from Meyer.

Danny whistled, laughing, and slapped the table, “Y’all are up to some _business_ business,” he said, still belligerently loud.

The guys across the room were leaning over to talk to each other now, their eyes trained on Healy and Holland. Jackson could see out of the corner of his eye that March had noticed too, because he had put his hand as far down on his own calf as he could without actually bending over. Getting ready to go for that goddamn ruger in the fucking ankle holster. They needed to get the hell out of here.

“You’re goddamn right we are,” Holland said suddenly and exuberantly, drawing Danny’s attention. “Fucking, go big or go home, amirite?” Jackson kicked him under the table. “Ow!” he complained, then kicked Jackson back and kept going. He was blotto. This was bad.

“Fuck yeah, man!” Danny said, cackling. “I like you! You’re the man!”

“I _am_ the man, Danny,” March said, still fiddling with his fucking pant leg, like he was going to be able to get the jump on anybody at this rate.

“You want fucking _guns,_ man? Well you’re in luck, my friend,” Danny said, hiccuping and pounding his fist on the table. “Cuz… we got some coming Friday, man, up in…”

They were interrupted by the approach of the pool players, one of whom grabbed Danny by the back of his collar and yanked him roughly out of the booth and onto the floor.

“What the fuck!!” Danny exclaimed, splayed out on his back. “What the fuck you do that for?”

“Oops,” said one of them, a tall, wide man with a patchy beard and a confederate flag bandana wrapped around his head. Another one, short, but stocky and built like a fireplug, lunged forward, trying to grab Jackson’s arm, but Healy leaned backward quickly and dodged the grapple.

And there went Holland, finally panicking, trying to flee for his life, but he was trapped in the booth, Healy on one side of him, the wall on the other. So instead, he attempted to bolt diagonally over the table, but got about halfway across before tripping over his own feet and flying face first into the bench on the opposite side.

Jackson was on his feet immediately, the brass knuckles out of his pocket and on his hand, and he shoved himself through the four pool-stick wielding bastards between him and March.

He grabbed March under the armpit as he passed by, basically just dragging him at first, as March was still dazed from having faceplanted into the bench and onto the filthy concrete floor. Somehow, by the grace of god, he got Holland on his feet, pulling the younger man’s arm over his shoulder. He didn’t have time to think about the blood that was pouring out of March’s face, dribbling down his shirt. He just had to get them out of here.

He made it as far as the door, yanked it open and shoved Holland out onto the porch. He felt a strong hand grab his shoulder from behind just as he let go, so he turned around and punched blindly, throwing all of his weight into it.

He connected with someone, square in the face, the nose exploding in a firework of gore. He didn’t even get a second to appreciate it before a pool stick caught him lengthwise in the gut, knocking the wind out of him.

But Jackson was born for this, and had been in worse scraps before, with further distance between him and the door. Though he had doubled over from the hit, he came back up swinging, catching one guy in the crotch and then pivoting to land another hit in the temple of someone else.

He grabbed a beer bottle off the table next to him, breaking it over the head of yet another attacker, right on the fucking bean, and the guy went down, completely out.

He noticed then that Danny had gotten up off the floor and was essentially foaming at the mouth. Outside, he heard a gun go off, just on the other side of the door.

Healy, distracted by the sight and the sound, caught a solid right hook into his lower back, right in his fucking kidney, and then someone slashed at him with a knife. He managed to jump backward just enough, still reeling from the hit to his back, to avoid getting skewered, but he felt the blade glance off the bone in his left forearm. He fell backwards, completely prone, and the thought occurred to him that maybe Holly would write his obituary. She’d probably come up with something nice.

At this moment, in what Jackson would forever remember as some sort of miracle, the door swung back open and March appeared, gun raised and level. His lip was split open, blood pouring from his mouth like he’d maybe bitten his tongue, and there was a nasty looking gash that cut through his right eyebrow, but his eyes were eerily clear as he pulled the trigger, blasting a hole through the shoulder of the man standing over Healy with the knife.

It bought them just enough time before the next distraction, which was Danny, screaming this wild, animalistic cry and running full tilt into the fray. He had his own knife in one hand, and leapt into the nearest biker, catching the other man in the sternum.

March had pulled Healy up by the time the other bikers even knew what was happening, and they were racing down the sidewalk, around the corner, back to the car, where they peeled out and into the night.

*

“That fucking escalated quickly,” Holland slurred, trying to talk around his swollen tongue, every “s” sound coming out like fucking Daffy Duck. “Fuck.”

Jackson was driving as fast as he possibly could, despite the growing pain in his left arm. The adrenaline was still pumping, so it didn’t hurt quite as bad as it he knew it would later.

March looked over at him and noticed it. It was hard not to. Even in the dark he could see the blood and _\-- what the fuck is that white shit-- fat?_ leaking out through the slashed sleeve of Healy’s leather jacket. He gagged a little. “Jesus, Healy, we gotta go to the hospital.”

“Well, not one around here,” Jackson said. “I’m taking us to Long Beach memorial.”

March shook his head. “Fuck, Healy, you’re bleeding… like, a lot… That’s like almost an hour away. There’s one in Covina, like, five minutes from here.”

“We’re not going anywhere they may take any of those guys when the meat wagon shows up, and nowhere that LAPD has jurisdiction. We gotta drop off their radar and I mean fast.”

Holland was quiet, thinking it over. “Fuck,” he said again. “Fuck.”

“Yeah,” Jackson agreed.

“Now we got those guys on us, _and_ a fucking arms dealer?”

“Appears so,” Jackson confirmed.

“Fuck.”

“Yeah.” Jackson took a moment to glance over at March. “You okay? I mean, you gotta keep your eyes open. You probably have a concussion.”

March shook his head, blood still dripping from the wounds on his face. He had one hand pressed against the cut in his eyebrow. "Great."

“You saved my life, March,” Jackson remarked, realizing it.

March shrugged. “Yeah. You’re welcome.”

Jackson thought of something. “Wait,” he said. “I heard a gunshot before you came inside… did you…”

Holland kept looking straight ahead, stiffening a little.

“March, did the gun go off while you were trying to get it out of the holster?”

“Look. The important thing is, I saved your life,” he said haughtily, then added, under his breath, “And I missed my foot. So. I win.”

Jackson smirked and took his bad arm off the wheel for a moment, pressing it against his thigh to slow the bleeding.

“Remind me why that was the safe move,” Holland asked.

“There are no safe moves for us right now, March,” Jackson reminded him. “Our only choice is to solve this or fucking disappear, and I don’t feel like making Holly move to fucking Timbuktu with us, do you?”

“No,” Holland said drawing in a breath. He rolled down the window and spat out a huge mouthful of blood that got flipped on the wind and just streaked all across the back window.

“Thanks for that,” Healy muttered, noticing.

March looked back at Jackson sheepishly, then back at Healy’s blood-soaked arm. He peeled his t-shirt off in one quick motion, and Healy inhaled sharply without thinking. March didn’t notice.

Holland tore the t-shirt into a couple of large strips, then reached out his hand. “Give me your arm.”

Healy obliged and March wrapped the t-shirt pieces around and tied them tight, clamping his free hand around Jackson’s forearm.

“I fucking got into a disguise for this shit and everything,” Holland complained, pressing what was left of his t-shirt to his face.

*

By the time they’d both been stitched up, it was 3 am, Wednesday morning. As they got out  at the hotel, March caught sight of his own reflection in the car window and grimaced. It had been hours, so he was just barely sober enough to realize how fucking horrendous he looked.

He was covered in blood, shirtless, dirty, and his right eye was swollen shut. Five big, ugly stitches poked out like quills along the slit in his eyebrow, and three more jutted out of his swollen bottom lip. He even had two stitches in his tongue, which he could feel scraping against his teeth. He looked over at Healy, who, though he’d somehow managed to avoid getting clocked in the face, had a tired, pained look, and was also covered in blood. The knife had nicked a tendon, so his left arm was splinted, his elbow and half his hand immobilized.

“We look like the fucking Night of the Living Dead,” March remarked. “We can’t wake Holly looking like this.”

Healy nodded wearily and gestured toward his door. “Just crash in my room,” he said. “It’s a single, but there’s that couch. I’ve gotta keep you awake anyway.” Jackson tapped on his own temple. “I was right. Doc said you have a concussion.”

“I was there,” March said defensively, “I heard him.”

“Yeah, well, you’re concussed. And probably still drunk. So I’m the responsible party here.”

“Dibs on the bed,” Holland said once they were through the door, and he flopped down onto it for emphasis. Healy pulled up one of chairs from the dinette and fell into it, dreading the moment when the lidocaine wore off and he could feel the slice in his arm. Holland was already closing his eyes.

“Hey,” Healy said, flicking his ear. “No sleeping.”

“Ow!” March exclaimed.

“Sit up…” Healy insisted forcefully, pulling on March’s arm.

March obeyed, albeit with a bit of a pout on his face that was accentuated by his fat lip.

“This is fucking shitty, man,” March complained. “I need a drink.”

“You’re still drunk, March. Give it a rest until tomorrow at least,” Jackson said, finding that he himself was struggling to keep his eyes open. “And look on the bright side.”

“Oh yeah, what would that be?”

“We got a lead.”

March squinted at him, which looked uncomfortable, with the way his eye was swollen. “I’m sorry. Maybe I wasn’t in the same bar as you.”

“Friday,” Healy reminded him.

“What’s Friday?”  
Jackson groaned. “It was the last thing Danny said before those guys started the fight,” he said, exasperated. “He said we were in luck as far as getting a gun, because something was happening Friday.”

Holland scoffed. “That’s pretty thin,” he said. “Pretty fucking thin.”

“Well, you put it together with the thing we have on John Horner, it’s something.”

“Fair point. But what do we do with it? It’s not enough for the feds to get involved, or for us to try to find a sympathetic ear at another police department.”

“I don’t know yet,” Healy admitted, “But I’m working on it.”

Holland considered their leads for a minute. “I think Horner is the guy Meyer trusts to do the footwork,” he suggested. “Theresa mentioned seeing him around and taking money. Maybe Meyer sits most of these things out, lets Horner take care of them.”

“It makes practical sense,” Healy acknowledged. “Especially if he caught wind that Tony was onto him a couple of years ago. He’d likely just lay low and operate in the background rather than go out and do the dirty work himself. Which means we won’t catch him in the act.”

“Not necessarily,” March suggested. “The two of them have to meet up eventually, hand off the money, trade information.”

“So we just follow Horner around.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s that simple.”  
“Yeah.”

“Another stakeout, then?”

“Bread and butter.”

“Of course, simple is relative,” Healy said. He noticed that the numbness in his arm was starting to turn to tingling, which meant pain was minutes away. He studied Holland’s face, battered, bruised, and bloody. They were not in peak physical condition at the present moment. “I mean, I hoped we wouldn’t have to put ourselves in Meyer’s crosshairs. A stakeout and following Horner is going to mean exactly that.”

“We don’t have any choice,” Holland said, yawning, then wincing at the pull of the stitches in his lip. “You said it yourself. We either solve this shit or we spend the rest of our very short lives looking over our shoulders.”

“And now we have a hard deadline.” Healy yawned in response, then shook his head. “Three days.”

“Yup.” Holland’s eyes were closing again, and Healy reached over and shook his arm. “C’mon. Stay awake man.”

“Not my first concussion,” Holland commented, his good eye only opening halfway.

“Not even a little surprised.”

March looked over at him and smiled a little. “You know, Rose had to do this for me once,” he said. “Keep me up all night after I got hit in the head. The time I lost my sense of smell.”

“Oh yeah?”

Holland nodded, raising his eyebrow. “It was actually really great,” he remarked “We listened to records and played Gin Rummy all night. We played that shit for eight hours straight,” he said, chuckling to himself. “She got so competitive about it. I mean, hell, so did I, and… you know… concussion and all, ten stitches in the back of my head, I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing. And she took advantage.”

Healy laughed, his face scrunching up in that charming way. “I can picture it,” he chuckled.

Holland laughed too, for a moment, then turned away. He looked up at the ceiling and took a shaky breath, concentrating on not losing it. The combination of a pounding headache, a fading buzz, and coming down from the major adrenaline rush of a bar fight was putting him in a weird place. He kept his eyes off Healy when he started talking again. “I miss her,” he said quietly, as a realization. “I fucking miss her, and it’s been two years, so why the fuck can’t I get over it?”

He heard Jackson’s rough voice answer evenly and genuinely, “You love her.”

March kept his face turned away, fighting against a sob. He won, for the most part, as he managed to get away with just his eyes filling up with tears he was able to blink away. He made a motion like he was scratching his face so that he could clean himself up. “Yeah. I did.”

“You _love_ her, present tense.”

“Yes. But I...I don’t deser.. What I did... You don’t understand… I.” He couldn’t finish. Couldn’t get the words out. He wasn’t ready. For any of it. “You know, I don’t even talk to Holly about it.”

“Why not?”

He studied the bad hotel art hanging on the wall. “I don’t know. I don’t know why,” he lied. The truth was he couldn’t face her. He’d stolen everything from her, he’d ruined her life. He’d ruined everything with his carelessness and his stupidity, and the worst part was that he knew he’d keep doing it. “She deserves better. Better than me. Better than anything I could say on the subject.”

“You can’t do this to yourself anymore,” Healy said gently, almost so quiet that March didn’t catch it. “You’re everything to her. You’re her father. And, I can’t believe I’m saying this, you’re actually pretty good at it. Considering.”

When he turned back to Healy he noticed something in the man’s face. It wasn’t entirely pity, it wasn’t quite sadness-- it was both, and neither, and something else, something he’d never seen on anyone’s face but Rose’s, and he actually _liked_ it, and felt comforted for a fleeting moment and it suddenly scared the hell out of him.

He shook his head, as if to shake the thoughts out, to start this over. He had to change the topic fast. “So,” he said, straightening himself up, changing his tone to something more jovial. “How are you gonna keep me awake? We don’t have any cards.”

Jackson smiled, his mouth turning up at one corner, that look still lingering behind his eyes, like he was wearing a mask for Holland’s benefit. “Let me ask you a question,” he said, instead of sharing whatever it was that was actually on his mind.

“Shoot,” Holland invited.

“How did you manage to get out of that bar without getting hit even _once,_ and still end up breaking your fucking face?”

“We’ve been over this. I’m invincible. There’s just. You know, drawbacks.”

“Drawbacks.”

“Like, how Superman is like, allergic to kryptonite.”

“He’s not ‘allergic,’ man, it kills him.”

March waved a hand at him dismissively. “Well, you get the idea. I can’t die, but I… I have... My kryptonite is I’m a klutz or whatever.”

“Or whatever,” Healy agreed. He grimaced as the first stab of pain coursed through his arm.

Holland looked him over. “I can’t believe you didn’t take the meds they offered you,” he said, half sympathetic, half awestruck. He’d gladly accepted the pills and had dry swallowed two before they even left the hospital.

Shaking his head, Jackson pushed himself up. He needed to move. “I’m fine,” he said. “You need anything? I’m going to go get some ice. Your face looks like fucking hamburger.”

Holland repeated a familiar refrain. “Yeah. I need a drink.”

*

When Jackson got back, Holland was already asleep and dreaming, one arm folded across his bare chest, the other shoved up under the pillow behind his head. His good eye was visibly moving underneath the lid and his breath was slow, deep, and even.

Usually Healy saw Holland dozing in odd places, fully clothed, passed out drunk or fitfully catching what little sleep he could. This was the first time he’d seen him looking somewhat peaceful and rested, and it broke his heart in ways he didn’t expect. The fact that peaceful sleep came only when March was drunk, beaten, and concussed made him deeply sad, and he wanted more than anything to just grab him by the shoulders and shake him until the guilt and the fear and the depression fell off of him.

He settled for just gently shaking March’s arm by the elbow, relieved when the man opened his eye and blinked a few times.

March sucked in a deep breath. “I wasn’t sleeping,” he said defensively, scrambling to sit back up.

“Just resting your eyes?”

“So to speak.” He accepted the towel full of ice and gingerly laid it against his cheek. “Your turn,” he said.

“Sorry?”

“June.”

“I’m tired, March.”

“Yeah, well, so am I, but I can’t sleep, so fucking spill it.”

His sigh was deep. There really hadn’t been anyone to talk to about this until now. Sure, Healy had guys he knew. He had a brother. Somewhere. But he mostly kept to himself when it came to this kind of thing. And his feelings on the matter were so complicated at this point, he wasn’t even sure what to say. “She. Ah.” Where to start where to start. “I don’t think I ever loved her. Not really,” he admitted. “I don’t think I knew how. I don’t know...”

Holland reached for a cigarette off the bedside table without taking the ice off his face. Healy reached over and lit it for him. “Why’d you marry her?” March asked cockily, taking a drag.

“It’s what you do,” Healy said, shrugging. “You know. When you’re pushing 45 and your Catholic mother is begging you to give her some grandchildren already because your little brother is away serving his country and she doesn’t want to die without knowing that both her sons would have some sort of lasting impact on the world.”

“Yikes,” remarked Holland.

“Yeah. Yikes. Anyway. Mom passed away about a year after June and I got hitched, probably still thinking that the Healy seed was going to be proliferated,” he took a drink of water and tried so hard to imagine it was rum. He wasn’t sure why he was being so free with this information, but it was just coming to him. They’d both gotten very little sleep, and his arm was throbbing, and talking distracted him. Talking to _Holland_ distracted him.

“We hung in there for a few more years. Just a handful. And when she did what she did, I was… you know. I was _wrecked._ But the funny part, really, is the _why._ Sure. Betrayal. Broken trust. The systematic emptying of my bank account before she came clean to me. But it wasn’t because I loved her and was losing her. Honestly, if she hadn’t practically bankrupted me, and… well, _who_ she left me for, I don’t know. I think I might even have been relieved. In a way.”

“Sorry. That’s fucking rough, man,” Holland said. He blew smoke out of the corner of his mouth, away from Healy’s face. “So who was it?”

“Who was what?”

“Who’d she leave you for?”

Jackson hesitated, closed his eyes, and slowly drank more water, still wishing it was liquor. “My dad.”

There was a long, solid silence, during which Healy thought he might curl up and die from shame, until, suddenly, Holland burst out in raucous laughter. “Your _dad_ !” He was shaking, coughing, about to choke on his cigarette he was laughing so hard. “That is _so..._ That shit,” he couldn’t stop. “That is the most... _fucked up_ thing… that I… have… ever heard! What... a _horrible..._ bitch!” He was fighting to catch his breath enough to add, “And your dad’s a fucking _dick_!”

And then Healy started laughing too, genuinely, from deep down. He saw it now. And it felt good. It was a catharsis he’d been waiting for years to experience. Some release, some admission of the absurdity of it, some acknowledgement of what a fucking joke life or god or whoever had played on him, and they both laughed so hard that tears were streaming down their faces.

* * *

 


	6. The Second Stakeout

Jackson woke up, still sitting in the chair, but leaned forward with his face resting on the bed, his injured arm wedged painfully between his stomach and the mattress. He stifled a cry as he straightened up, feeling every heartbeat like a new knife in the wound.

He had a moment of panic when he realized he’d dozed off, because it meant that he’d let March do the same. He reached over and put his hand on March’s chest, and when March snapped awake, startled, he sighed with relief.

March put his hands on either side of his head, trying to hold it together. He mumbled something with the word “sick”, then started trying to get up quickly. Healy stood up to support him (mostly just to keep him from completely falling over) and stumbled with him to the bathroom, where Holland fell down on his knees in front of the toilet and retched.

“Yep.” Healy said, sitting down on the edge of the bathtub. “Good morning.”

March looked up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and then rolled back on his heels to a sitting position, resting against the base of the sink. His hand absently went up toward the stitches in his eyebrow, and Jackson caught his wrist, stopping him.

“Don’t touch it,” he warned.

After a moment of dazed silence, March remembered, groaning. “Oooooh. Right.”

Jackson stood up and grabbed a dixie cup off the counter and filled it with water, handing it to Holland, who sipped it cautiously. “Talk to me. How you doing?” Jackson asked his patient.

“I’ll live,” he said closing his eyes and leaning his head back. “Do I look as bad as I feel?”

“Worse.” Healy said, his lip curling, “And you smell fucking _awful_. Take a shower, will ya?”

“Thanks for the heads up,” March muttered sarcastically. “I’m gonna guess you don’t smell like a fucking fresh summer rain yourself.”

“What do you remember?” Healy asked him.

March kept his eyes closed. “Uh. Barfight. Hospital. June and your dad.”

“Wonderful.” _The one time he doesn’t black out._

Jackson stepped over Holland’s legs and back into the room, closing the door behind him. He picked up his glasses off the nightstand and put them on, having opted to leave them behind while they were on their bar crawl last night. Given the way things had gone, he was glad he’d done that. Glasses weren’t cheap to replace.

The combination of March’s and his own blood had dried on his shirt, and it was sticky and uncomfortable. He found his undershirt from a couple of days ago, slung over the arm of the couch, and changed, which was kind of an ordeal. He cradled his arm while he looked for the goddamn ibuprofen. There was a timid knock at the door just as he heard March turn on the shower. He paused.

“Healy?” came Holly’s voice from outside. “Are you guys in there?”

He looked over his shoulder at the closed bathroom door, listened to the shower running, and suddenly felt nervous.

It was 8:00 in the morning… Holly must have woken up alone and not known where they were. He knew he should let her in right away, but he hesitated for some reason. She knocked again, louder this time. “Healy?”

He pulled the door open and tried to put on his most confident smile. It didn’t work.

“Oh my god,” she said, her face going pale. “What happened?”

Jackson went to put up his hands to calm her, but the splint caught and he winced, cursing under his breath. “Everything’s fine,” he managed, recovering quickly.

“What happened, and where is my dad,” she demanded.

“He’s just in the shower. We’re fine.”

She paused, taking in the situation laid out before her. “The shower? _Your_ shower?” She sighed, relieved, and what might have been a smile crossed her face for just a second. Then she blushed. “I’m sorry to… I didn’t mean to pry… I just woke up and Dad wasn’t there and I wanted to know how it went, and… hey… so…”

Jackson noticed her reaction, looked at the bathroom door and then back to her, and wasn’t sure if he was reading it right, but he felt himself blush back. “No. No, you’re not prying… just. Come in, Holly,” he said. “I can explain.”

She walked past him and looked around. The bed was still made, Healy was dressed in his clothes from the day before, and… hey… was that a shirt covered in blood on the floor? She turned back to him, clearly disappointed. “What. Happened.”

“We got in a fight. Nothing serious. We’re both okay.”

She pointed at his arm. “You’re not okay. You’re clearly in pain, Healy. Did you even sleep last night?”

“Yeah about that.”

“What.”

“Okay. So your dad had a _slight_ concussion,” he said, trying to sound casual, “So we stayed up most of the night talking… so that he wouldn’t. Fall asleep.”

She ran her hand through her hair and flopped down on the couch in a move that was right out of the Holland March playbook. “Ugh. You guys.”

“And, when you see him, try not to be too freaked out… I think it just looks worse than it is.”

“Did he break his nose again?”

“Cheekbone. Under his right eye. And. Uh… just a fat lip… nothing major.”

She groaned. “Is he doing okay? Should he be in the hospital? Should you?”

“Holly, I promise, we’re both going to be fine. It’s just, minor damage. Nothing we can’t handle.”

She looked at him, took a deep breath, and seemed to calm down. Then she chuckled to herself, shaking her head. “When you opened the door, I thought you were going to tell me something awful happened. And then, when you said my dad was just in the shower. I thought…” she laughed, and it seemed sort of melancholy. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter.”

“What?” Jackson asked, going back to his search for the ibuprofen. He found it in the bottom of the duffle bag and shoved five in his mouth. His stomach would rebel later, but he needed this, goddamn it.

“Nothing. Seriously,” she said. “I’m going back to the room, I’ll grab him a change of clothes. When he’s _decent_ , come get me and tell me about this fight you guys were in.”

*

“Jeez, Dad. Healy wasn’t kidding. You look _terrible,_ ” she said as they came through the door of the room twenty minutes later.

“I. I did not.” Jackson stumbled over his words. “Holly, that’s not what I…”

Holland gave him a sideways glance, then tried his best to grin, saying to Holly, “You should see the other guy.” He eased himself down on one of the beds, keeping his head steady. He had the mother of all icepick headaches, and that metallic blood taste wouldn’t go away.

Holly remained standing, her arms crossed and hips jutted in a contrapposto, her eyebrows raised, unconvinced by her father’s attempt at reassurance. Healy sat down on the other bed across from March.

They recounted the night’s events, including their discovery about the delivery Friday, but not including the part where March’s injuries had been sustained by his own inability to run away properly. He did devote extra time to describing how he had saved Healy’s life. They finished by explaining their grand, oh-so-clever plan of following Horner around until they caught him red handed.

Holly looked from her dad’s face to Healy’s arm and back again, and saw the same thing that Jackson had noticed the night before. They were not at their best. Not even close. She was actually a little shocked they were even awake and talking to her right now. “No offense guys,” she said, not trying too hard to be delicate, “But I don’t think you’re up to this right now.”

“Hey. I’m fit as a fucking fiddle,” Holland quipped.

Holly leaned in closer to look at his mouth as he spoke. “Are there… did you get stitches… _in your tongue_?” she asked, incredulous.

He closed his mouth quickly.

“We’re going to be at a safe distance, Holly,” Jackson cut in. “We’ll rent a car, something no one will recognize. I promise we’ll be careful.”

She gestured toward her father with her chin. “ _You_ promise. What about him?”

“We’ve gotta do this,” March said with resolve. “We don’t have a choice. Unless you _like_ living in a hotel, you’re gonna have to trust us on this one. I promise to be careful.” He held up his pinky.

She sighed, plopping down next to him and hooking her little finger around his. “Fine, you can go,” she said, resigned. “But I reserve the right to worry about you while you’re out.”

“Great. Glad we have your permission. Okay,” March said, looking in the drawer in the nightstand for the pint-sized bottle of vodka he’d stashed there when they’d first arrived at the hotel. It was gone. Gideon’s Bible stared back up at him and he turned and looked at Holly, who was avoiding his glare. He moved on.

“We’ll drop you back downtown, so you can start looking for Horner’s address.” He pushed himself up and walked over to the closet, reaching inside and pulling a flask out of the pocket of one of his sportcoats. He took a quick sip, deliberately rationing it, and looked back at Holly again. “And maybe look into other properties owned by Jill Horner,” March added.

“That makes sense,” she said, “If the Beverly Hills house is owned by her, they may be hiding other things in her name.”

“But once we have all that, we’re taking you to a new hotel, and you’re staying there until this is over,” March declared. “We’ll need to stay on Horner until the drop, and I have to know you’re somewhere safe.” The tone in his voice left no room for argument, and she nodded.

After what had happened at the auto show, she knew he was being more careful about where she tagged along, and the fight last night had scared him. She decided not to push it. For now.

“You and I should stock up on film,” March said to Healy.

“And bullets,” Healy added.

“Yes,” replied March, pointing at him like he was star pupil. “Yes. Bullets.” He scratched his chin, “Shit. Can you even use the shotgun with one hand?”

Healy shook his head. “Not advisable,” he answered. “But I have a .45 pistol back in my room. Oughta do the trick.”

“Nice,” said March, nodding.

“Wow,” Holly said flatly, “The testosterone in here. Yeesh.” She picked up her backpack. “Well, let’s get a move on. We’ve got three days, can’t stand around here talking forever.”

*

It took Holly the better part of the morning to find Horner’s address, but she persevered, and also found two other properties owned by Jill, a condo in Big Bear and an empty lot zoned for residential use in Ojai. Both places were about equidistant from LA, and they couldn’t be sure that either one would be the site of a drop off, pick up, or otherwise, so they filed that information away.

She helped Healy and March pack up the rented Ford Granada with the two Nikons, a brand-new polaroid camera, binoculars, a metric ton of backup film, and, of course, their ammo. Healy’s Toronado was safely stowed away, bunking with March’s Mercedes.

It was a little over two hours’ drive to San Diego, but it seemed too fast to her. Once they dropped her off, she wouldn’t be able to watch out for them, and the feeling was uneasy. At least they had each other, she reasoned. Or, more to the point, at least her dad had Healy.

“We’ll see you Saturday,” Holland said to her, and kissed the top of her head. “Remember to lock the deadbolt and put the chair under the knob at night.”

“I know, Dad,” she said gently, letting him hold her longer than usual. “I’ll only let strangers in if they offer me candy or a new puppy.”

He ruffled her hair and kissed her again, giving her one final squeeze before letting go.

“We’ll call you at 9:00 am and at 9:00 pm every day until we see you again,” Healy promised as they said their goodbyes in the hotel room. He pressed a wad of twenties into her hand. “For pizza, or, you know, whatever teenagers eat these days.”

She stood on her tiptoes and hugged him tightly, then kissed his cheek. “Take care of him,” she whispered in his ear.

He chuckled as they came apart, slightly blushing. “We’re going to be okay, Holly,” he assured her.

“Yeah, and the publicity from this is gonna be great for business,” Holland said brightly.

She took a pen out of her pocket and wrote her room and the hotel phone number on his forearm, adding “9 + 9.” “I _will_ panic if I don’t hear from you. Then you can find out what it’s like to have to deal with a hysterical person,” she warned.

* * *

 

“Can we _please_ listen to something,” Holland whined, reclining the seat as far back as it would go. “I can’t stand this _silence_.”

They’d parked uphill from Horner’s place, two blocks away, after having called Holly from a payphone at a nearby gas station for their check-in at 9:00. The last streaks of sunlight were leaving the sky. They could still see the house clearly, a one-story modern number, slightly sprawling, with a meticulously manicured lawn. It was classy and on the expensive side, but nowhere near the extravagance they’d seen at the Meyers. Healy was looking at it through the binoculars.

“Clearly Meyer takes the lion’s share of the profits,” Healy remarked.

“Are you even listening to me?” March asked.

“Not really.”

“Can we turn on the radio.”

“No.”

“Not even baseball?” March suggested. “I think there’s a game tonight, maybe it’s still going.”

“This shit is serious, March,” Healy reminded him. “We can’t be distracting ourselves right now.”

March groaned. “It’s _because_ it’s serious that I need to listen to something,” he admitted, shifting in his seat.

Healy sighed and clicked on the radio, tuning it to the game and turning it down low. “There,” he said gruffly. “Happy now?”

“Yes. Yes I am. Thank you.” March popped the cigarette lighter in and crossed his arms behind his head, relaxing.

Chuckling, Healy turned and looked down at him. “I don’t get you sometimes, March.”

“I’m a complicated man.” He grabbed the lighter as soon as it popped out and got a smoke going.

“I mean,” Healy went on, “you’re so _jumpy_ and fucking… nervous all the time. But I have seen you run straight into a hail of bullets, no hesitation, and come out on the other side unscathed.” He cut his hand through the air for emphasis. “But then you go right back to being. Jumpy.”

Holland shrugged, like he didn’t know the answer either, and changed the subject. “Tell me about your brother,” he suggested, as if in continuation of their conversation from the night before.

“Talk about ‘not getting’ someone,” Healy muttered. “He’s five years younger than me. Probably out of the airforce by now. I dunno.”

“So you haven’t talked to him in a while.”

“Nah. We had some laughs when we were kids, but…” he looked down at Holland and shook his head. “Family doesn’t necessarily mean ‘friends.’ What about you? Brothers? Sisters?” He couldn’t believe he’d never asked.

“Only child.”

Healy laughed. “Makes sense.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothin’.”

“I had a couple cousins I was kinda close with,” Holland recalled. “But yeah. You’re right about the family thing. Until Holly, I never understood it. Like, how’s blood supposed to mean you’re forever connected to someone? Holly… I mean, Holly is.... She’s. Like, better than everything… my whole life. But all the other people in my life I’ve ever really cared about… it’s been because we chose each other. Like Rose. Like...” he trailed off, looking pointedly at the white vinyl ceiling of the car.

Healy put the binoculars down and his glasses back on. He studied March’s face, the left side smooth and relaxed, that pretty boy look that Holland carried so well without looking arrogant, and then the right side of his face, purple and green and even more painful looking than the night before. Jackson felt desperately lonely.

He turned to look out the window again and finally saw the front door of the house open.

“Holy shit,” he said, raising the camera and starting to snap photos. “March. March, get a load of this.”

Holland sat back up without adjusting the seat, grabbing the binoculars to take a closer look, but he didn’t need to. He recognized the man immediately.

Emerging from the house was Tony Maldonado, wearing that same ridiculous ‘disguise’ from the day March had seen him in the park. As if he were fucking fooling anybody.

“What. The. Fuck.” He shook his head slowly, then shook it faster, then said, louder, “ _What the fuck?”_ He smacked Healy in the shoulder with the back of his hand.

Healy got ready to turn the key in the ignition, but Holland stopped him with a hand on his wrist. “No. No. Wait,” he said, composing himself.

“Shouldn’t we follow him?”

“No, you should stay on Horner for now, we can’t lose him. I’ll go catch up with Tony…” he realized. “Maybe I can get something out of him.”

“You gonna follow him on foot?”

“Yeah, I got this.”

“Seems like an even worse idea to talk to him now than it did when we _didn’t_ know he was directly connected to Horner.”

But Holland was already out the door. “If I’m not back by 10:00, uh…” he didn’t finish. Just took off down the street at a brisk pace.

“Great,” Healy said to himself.

*

Holland tried to tail Tony from as far back as possible without losing him. _Please don’t turn around please don’t turn around._

He got lucky for about three blocks, following Tony further out of the neighborhood without him noticing, until he saw Maldonado’s car further down and realized he would lose him the minute the man got into it.

March broke into a run, and his new mantra became _please don’t trip please don’t trip please don’t trip._

He had a flashback to the other night when Jackson had made him take his shoes off, and now he understood. The hard wooden heels struck the cement in such a way that definitely attracted attention, and as a result, Tony looked over his shoulder.

“Fuck,” Tony gasped, and then broke into a run himself, bolting for the car. He had about a twenty foot lead on Holland.

March sprinted, trying to close the gap as Tony fumbled for his keys in his pocket. Tony had just managed to get the door open when Holland ran headlong into him, wrapping his arms around him and slamming him against the inside of the car.

*

Healy turned the radio back off and resumed looking at the house, camera at the ready. He thought back to their promise to Holly that they’d be careful and shook his head. He hoped that March’s devotion to his daughter would be enough to keep him from doing anything too stupid.

When Horner came out of the house five minutes later, Jackson scanned the area, trying to see if March was on his way back. He tapped his fingers on the key in the ignition nervously, and wasn’t sure what to do. If he left, and March came back, how would they reconnect? They’d made arrangements for checking in with Holly, but hadn’t bothered to get a hotel room for themselves, assuming they’d be spending the night in the car.

“Fuck, March,” he swore, watching Horner walk across the yard and get into the car in the driveway. “ _Fuck._ ”

*

“ _Fuck,_ ” March cursed as his mouth filled with blood. The stitches in his lip had pulled out a bit as he’d collided with Tony’s ribcage.

Tony was struggling to get away from him, trying to slip into the driver’s seat. Holland recovered and snatched the keys out of his hand, flinging them clumsily behind him and into the bushes of a neighboring yard.

They struggled awkwardly, Tony still trying to push away, and March still holding around the man’s waist with all his strength.

Tony was stronger, bigger, and managed to extricate himself simply by standing up at full height, which knocked March off balance and he fell backward into the gutter. But Tony still had to look for his keys, which gave March enough time to pull the .38 and pull back the hammer.

The ‘click’ caught Tony’s ear and he whipped around. As soon as he saw the gun, he raised his hands. “ _Hall_ ,” he said pleadingly, a desperate look on his face.

“Get in the car,” March demanded, not lowering the gun.

“Hall, you don’t understand…”

“Get. In. The. Car.”

*

Healy still hadn’t made up his mind by the time Horner was in the car and putting his seatbelt on. He snapped a few photos of the man and the car, in case they needed them for later, then slapped the steering wheel in frustration as Horner backed out of the driveway.

He reclined the seat all the way and laid down so that Horner wouldn’t see him as he drove past.

“Shit,” he whispered to himself, wondering if he’d made the right choice. After a few moments, he slowly brought the seat back up and looked back at the house. All the lights were turned off. It appeared to be empty. He checked around one more time to see if March was coming, and then made the decision to investigate the house on his own, collecting a flashlight, the polaroid camera, and his notebook into a bag.

*

“What happened to your _face_?”  Tony asked after he had settled into the passenger seat.

“Don’t worry about it,” March said. “Worry about how you’re gonna explain what I just saw.”

Tony’s face fell and he looked down. “What… heh… what did you see?”

“Why don’t you quit fucking around, Tony, okay?”

Tony looked back at him and for a moment it seemed like he was sizing him up, trying to weigh his options.

“Tony,” March said, “I will shoot you in the fucking knee cap so help me God.”

“Ha. That’s better than what they’ll do to me. Go ahead.”

March’s brow furrowed and he thought about it for a second, then cocked the gun and took aim.

“No! No wait!” Tony exclaimed, holding up his hands again. “Fuck!”

“Why were you in Horner’s place?”

Tony sighed deeply, closed his eyes, and paused before he said, “I’m… sleeping with him.”

*

As a rule, Healy always tried all the doorknobs on a house before actually breaking in. Sometimes it paid off and you saved yourself some effort. This was not one of those times.

He did notice that the windows were the type that, when pushed in a bit and walked to the side, would slide open. Assuming you didn’t push too hard and break the window. He chose a window at the back of the house, since the back yard was bordered by an eight-foot stucco-covered wall that obscured the view.

Jackson placed the palm of his good hand against the glass, and leaned on it with the opposite shoulder, succeeding in opening it enough to slip his hand in and slide it the rest of the way. He used his buck knife to pry the screen off, and then managed to pull himself up on to the sill with one arm.

He found himself in a bedroom, the sheets half on the floor, an ashtray filled with the butts from two different cigarette brands. Standing still for a moment so he could get a feel for whether or not he was alone, he scanned the room for anything helpful.

It felt quiet enough in the house that he was as sure as he could be that, at least for now, the place was empty.

He took out the flashlight and started gingerly poking around, making sure not to misplace anything enough for Horner to notice that he’d been there.

*

March was just staring at Tony, confused.

“I’m… I’m gay, Hall,” Tony clarified.

“That’s…” Holland squinted at him, “What?”

“Yeah, I’m gay.”

“Since when?”

Tony chuckled dryly, “Since always. I thought you knew.”

“How would I know?”

Maldonado groaned and shook his head. “I mean, I even hinted at it last time I saw you!”

March wracked his brain, replaying the conversation. It felt like it had taken place years ago. “Wait…”

“Yeah.”

“ _Wait._ ”

Tony nodded at him. “Yeah. Yes. I thought you were too.”

“But I was married! _Happily_ married,” March argued. “Why would you..?”

Tony shrugged. “Marriage doesn’t mean you’re straight.”

March looked up for a moment, processing. He was going through moments, flashes in his life, things he’d done or said. Things he’d noticed. “Is that why you were such a dick about Rose? Because you thought… you thought I didn’t even want to be with her?”

“Nah, man. That stripper thing was… it was some stupid attempt at being funny. I mean, with the guys… it was about being a man’s man, whatever the fuck that shit is supposed to mean. It was stupid, and cruel, and I didn’t know what I was doing,” he admitted. “I just thought I could. You know, _not_ like guys if I just. Stopped? Was a dick? I dunno.”

Holland sighed. He shook his head, realizing none of it mattered. “Look. Good to know. Great to hear that you’re gay and you’re sorry about being an asshole, or whatever, but, Christ, Tony. What the fuck is going on with you and John Horner?”

“I _told_ you, we’re sleeping together,” he repeated, exasperated.

“ _Him_?”

“I guess I have a thing for blonds,” he mumbled.

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing,” he said, looking back down again. “Look, it’s… I met him while we were investigating Koenig… and I fell in… I fell in love with him.”

March chuckled.

“Oh, yeah, ha _ha_ ,” Tony said, furious. “Laugh at the fucking queer. Yuck it up.”

“Oh _please,_ ” March said, curling his lip. “No. God. That’s so… don’t insult my intelligence, okay? I’m _laughing_ because the other day you were making it sound like you had this ace hunch that Koenig had a business partner… Like you fucking figured it out yourself.” He laughed again.

Tony rolled his eyes and sighed. “Right. Fine,” he said. “Yes. I’m not a great detective.”

“You’re a _terrible_ detective!” Holland said. “Fuck. If they hadn’t pushed me out, the fucking promotions I could’ve gotten. What a waste.”

“I’m glad this is boosting your self esteem.”

“Hey, man. You’re not off the hook. I want to know what you know. Now.”

*

The place was well-kept, but not to a professional degree. It didn’t look like there was a maid coming around every week. The upscale, simple white furniture and copious amounts of mirrors on the walls made the house look bigger on the inside than it had on the outside. Immaculate white shag carpet muffled Jackson’s every step.

There was a sparse glass desk in the living room, with some books and papers stacked neatly in the corner. Healy was careful to memorize the order and arrangement of the stack before he started carefully rifling through it.

Midway through he struck gold-- a leather-bound desk journal calendar. In pencil on the page for the coming Friday, it read:

 

_Gridley 1a_

_Horse head_

_Pass Hectonage_

 

He snapped a polaroid of the page, flinching when the flash went off, and then carefully put everything back the way he found it. Not knowing how much time he had left before Horner returned, he retreated to the bedroom, back out the window, and sealed the place up, walking casually back out to the car.

*

“He’s just trying to protect his sister,” Tony said.

March let the gun drift down and held it on his knee, finger off the trigger. “Right. And the money ain’t bad either.”

Tony ignored him. “Harold put almost everything in Jill’s name except the bank accounts, which means she’s implicated in everything he does. If he goes down, she loses everything. She could even be considered an accessory or a co-conspirator.”

“People are dead, Tony,” March reminded him, “Like, _lots_ of people. Who knows how many. And the guns he brings in… you think those are going to upstanding citizens?”

“I know. I know,” he admitted. “But you know how it is. It’s family.”

“So he protects her, you protect him.”

“I guess that’s the arrangement. You can’t help who you fall for, you know?”

“So what changed? Why did you start the investigation back up? Why hire Haggarty if you wanted to protect John?”

Tony’s brow creased and he looked pained. “I was trying to do what I could to get Jill and the kids out of there, so I could nail Meyer without them getting hurt,” he explained. “I thought… I thought that if I could just take care of them, John and I could get out of here. Be together somewhere, and he wouldn’t have to hustle anymore.”

“Love, huh?” March shook his head. “So where did Haggarty come in on this clusterfuck?”

“Haggarty was supposed to be tracking the bank accounts. I told him it was some kind of tax evasion thing,” he said sadly, full of regret. “He bought it. I was hoping he could get me something that would help Jill and the kids get a little piece of the pie before they disappeared. I didn’t tell John, and I didn’t tell Jill. She must have seen him around, gotten scared, and then called you. Anyway… I. I finally told John, the night before Haggarty was killed,” he looked up at March, his eyes wet and red, “Hall, I think. I think John murdered him.”

Holland scoffed. “You _think_?”

“Okay. Fine. I _know,_ ” Tony admitted. “He just… he didn’t want me involving anyone else. Thought it was too dangerous. That it might lead back to us.”

“Great. Fantastic. Does he know about me and Healy?”

“I didn’t tell him. But I don’t know.”

March let out a quick breath. “I guess we’re not any worse off than I thought,” he said, considering it. “Where are they making the drop on Friday?”

Tony looked confused. “What?”

“The fucking drop. The gun delivery, the shipment pickup or whatever,” Holland said impatiently.

“I don’t… John didn’t say anything about it…”

“You’re fucking the guy and you guys don’t make any small talk? No, ‘Hi Honey, how was your day?’ ‘Oh, fine. You know. I’m picking up some automatic rifles at the docks on Friday.’?”

“I’ve been trying to stay out of it since last week. Since Haggarty.”

“Ugh,” March groaned. “You are no help.” He tapped his fingers nervously on his knee, realizing that the familiar creep of fear was moving back into his gut. “We’ve gotta shut this down, Tony. We won’t be safe until Meyer’s caught.”

Tony nodded. “What can I do?”

“Nothing. Stay out of our way. Don’t try to help. And, for the love of God, don’t tell John.”

*

“Jesus, March, your lip,” Jackson said as Holland pulled open the passenger side door and settled himself back in the car. Healy pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to March.

“Thanks,” March said, pushing the cloth gently against his mouth. He looked over at Jackson. “Tony’s fucking John Horner.”

Healy raised his eyebrows. “Huh.”

“Yeah,” he said, then filled Jackson in on the rest of the details as he’d heard them from Tony.

“I fucking _knew_ that guy didn’t give us everything,” Jackson grumbled.

“Yeah. Well. Me too. You know.”

“Right.”

“I mean, I didn’t know he was _gay_ , but…”

“How does that strike you?” Jackson asked nonchalantly.

March shrugged. “I mean, whatever,” he said. “You know, in like ten years, something like forty percent of the population will be openly homosexual.”

“That a fact?” Healy said, raising his eyebrows.

“I mean, just ‘cause I dig the ladies doesn’t mean I have anything against guys who dig guys. People say it’s ‘deviant,’ I say, ‘who cares?’” He looked off to the right in thought, out the window, into the starry night, missing the subtle look of disappointment on Jackson’s face. “Anyway,” he went on. “What did you get up to while I was out? I see Horner’s gone.”

“I kept myself busy,” he said, handing the polaroid to March. “Found this in his daily journal, marked down for Friday.”

March whistled. “Okay! Now we’re cooking with gas.” He grinned at Healy, “You broke in?”

Jackson nodded. “I say we go grab some maps and try to find Gridley. It’s gotta be a road somewhere in the area.”

“It’s a road in Ojai,” March said with certainty.

“The hippie town?” Jackson asked, “Where Jill owns property?”

“The very same. Orange orchards and Hare Krishna retreats.”

“And organized crime, apparently.”

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full disclosure, I grew up in Ojai, and I get a kick out of stories set in LA where they take a trip to Ojai. My parents have lived there since the 70's. It's a strange town.


	7. The Message

“Please try not to kill anyone,” Holly said over the phone the following morning. “Or get anyone killed. Or. You know. Get killed.”

“Hey,” March responded, yawning, “we’ll do our best…”

“Why can’t you just call the cops and tip them off?”

“Honey, we covered this. We’ve got nothing concrete. All hearsay and illegally obtained information.”

She groaned. “Did you at least get some sleep last night?”

“Yes,” he lied. He had attempted to sleep, but it didn’t come easily on a good night, let alone a night with a bombshell like the one he’d gotten yesterday from Tony, and the prospect of a life-threatening confrontation just a day away.

“Can I talk to Healy?”

“What do you need to talk to Healy for?”

Jackson overheard from just outside the phone booth, and pulled the door open, letting himself in. He held out his hand for the phone, and Holland rolled his eyes, dropping the receiver into Healy’s rough palm.

“Hi Holly,” he said.

“Healy, how’s he doing?”

Jackson looked his partner up and down. “Nervous.”

“Good. I hope he’s taking this shit seriously.”

“We both are.”

“Is he getting any rest?”

“We spent the night in the car last night, waiting around for Horner to get back, just to see if we could get anything else.”

March gave him an annoyed look.

“So that’s a no,” Holly acknowledged.

“Pretty much. But we’ve got a day. We’ll get a couple of rooms for the night. I’ll call you with the number once we’re there.”

“How did he… react to the news about Tony?”

Healy covered the phone with his palm and turned to March. “Do you mind? It’s kind of crowded in here,” he said.

“Are you. Are you fucking kidding me? That’s my daughter on the phone,” March said indignantly.

“Yeah. And we’re having a conversation. Wait outside.”

March scoffed. “Seriously. Seriously. Fuck…” but he grumbled his way out of the booth anyway, stopping just outside the door. Healy motioned with his hand for him to move further out. March kicked dirt at him and retreated to the car, flipping him off as he did so.

Healy turned back to the phone. “You mean about Tony being in on it?” he asked Holly. “He seemed to get over it pretty quickly.”

She sighed into the phone, the sound like a seashell held to your ear. “No. Not that. About Tony. Being gay.”

Healy nodded to himself and looked at Holland through the grimy glass wall of the phone booth, sitting dejectedly in the driver’s seat, staring at him. “He seemed cool with it.” All her questions were making more and more sense the longer he knew her. The way she talked to him and confided in him and trusted him. The fucking glasses for christ’s sake. She was grooming him.

“That’s… good,” she said, like she was fishing for something else, but Jackson wasn’t ready to go there, so she dropped it. “Look, I still want you guys checking in. And please stick together.”

“We will,” Jackson promised. “I won’t let him out of my sight.”

*

Holland watched Jackson in the phone booth, leaning against the glass, still wearing that blue leather jacket even though it was horribly bloodstained and torn. March knew a little about sewing. Holly had taught him, in one of her vain attempts at giving him the skills to take care of himself. And he knew how to recondition bloodstained leather. His boots proved that. They’d been splashed with the stuff many times before, and they still looked alright. But really, Healy probably just needed a new jacket. Maybe they could go shopping when this was all over.

He looked at him, wondering why, now that he really thought about it, Jackson wore that coat all the time. The man had strong, muscular arms that made him think of some classic hero out of a fucking comic book, and yet he almost always had them covered. He hadn’t really noticed until they’d been in the hospital, when Jackson had to take the jacket off to get his arm tended to. He’d refused any painkillers, just accepting the lidocaine shot, and all his muscles had tensed up as they’d worked on him.

_Maybe he’s self conscious because of the scars,_ he thought, which he’d noticed before. A close-range shotgun blast to the bicep apparently didn’t just leave a scratch in its wake. March had his share of scars, and didn’t know what the big deal was, but everybody had their own hangups.

Healy hung up the phone and came back to the car, dropping into the passenger seat wearily. “Holly’s right,” he said, “We’ve gotta get some sleep.”

“I don’t like you guys conspiring against me,” March complained, starting up the car.

“She’s just looking out for us.”

“Yeah. Well. She’s a good kid.”

“She really is,” Healy said, closing his eyes. “Must be from her mom’s side.”

* * *

 

Jackson tried napping on the way to Ojai, but they got as far as Santa Paula on the 150 before Holland pulled over to buy avocados from a guy selling them out of a truck bed by the side of the road.

“We have all day,” March reasoned as Jackson awoke and eyed him with annoyance.

“I hate avocados,” Jackson said.

“You hate everything,” March countered.

“Get strawberries if he has any.”

He did have strawberries, in the cab, a few crates stacked up on the passenger seat. Holland bought an entire flat, and six big, purple avocados. Way more than the two of them could eat, but he reminded himself they’d be back with Holly in a day or two, and she could help with them. Maybe some of her friends could come over and they could all hang out and have some semblance of a normal day. It helped him to think like that right now. That there was someone waiting for him, who would actually care if he didn’t make it home. It kept him focused. As much as was possible for his flighty brain.

He opened the passenger door and plopped the strawberries down in Jackson’s lap.

“Jesus,” Jackson said, pulling the seat back up so he was in an upright position. “We having a party or something?”

“You’re welcome,” he answered, tossing the brown paper bag full of avocados into the back seat.

Jackson grabbed a huge, dark red strawberry by the stem and biting down into it. “Ah! These are _perfect_ ,” he said around a mouthful, suddenly chipper. He ripped the stem off another so that it would be an easy bite, and handed it to Holland, who accepted it gladly.

“So good fruit is on the ‘like’ list,” March said sardonically. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He chewed gingerly, still mindful of his stitched tongue, but Jackson was right, the berries were pretty perfect.

“So. Ojai,” Jackson said, leaning the seat back again and wolfing down four more strawberries. “I’ve lived in LA for years but I’ve never come up this way.”

“Kind of a resort town, I guess… they’ve got the golf course and a couple of fat camps for celebrities that need to lose a few pounds before their next film. Then there’s this whole weird spiritual thing going on… They’ve got… get this… a ‘Theosophy’ institute up there.”

“Theosophy? What. What’s that mean?”

“Probably some blend of hippy dippy mysticism and, like, I dunno… classical Greek thought. I’m not really sure, but it’s a draw.”

“You and Holly come out here much?”

Holland paused for a second, then, as if he’d made some sort of internal decision, said confidently, “Rose and I got married up there.”

“Oh.” He wasn’t sure what to say to that.

“She thought it was quaint. Lots of trees, the mountains in the background. And the air is clear. She was pregnant with Holly at the time, made me quit smoking for a while, and she was toying with us moving away from LA to get away from the smog.”

“I can see the appeal.”

“We were there for a week. Testing it out. But.” He shrugged. “It’s a small fucking town. We got bored fast. I was… different then. Less. What was the word you used. ‘Jumpy.’ More adventurous. A small town seemed too dull to me.”

Jackson looked at him sadly. “I’m sorry I said that.”

“Nah. You’re not wrong,” March admitted, in a rare moment of self awareness.

Healy considered March’s recent streak of honest, frank conversation and felt a little disconcerted. He wasn’t sure what to make of it. The only side of March’s face he could see was the battered side, so it was impossible to read his expression at the moment. He wasn’t sure if he should say anything else, and didn’t want to risk it, so he just looked out the window at the approaching valley laid out before them, unbesmirched by smog.

*

Their only real choice for lodgings in Ojai was the Ojai Valley Inn, a Country Club resort and golf course situation on the edge of the tiny blip of a town. It was overpriced and snooty, but they figured it was one night, so they might as well treat themselves. It was either that or sleep in the car or a hotel in the next city over.

Jackson liked Ojai, for the most part. It was slow, quiet, easy going. What the fuck anyone would do for work out here besides caddy or teach community workshops on Eastern Religion was beyond him, but he could see why Hollywood types were always vacationing up here. The fancy hotel, however, that was less comfortable.

March headed straight for the bar, giving Healy his suitcase, a key to his room, and asking him to call Holly to tell her where they were.

“I mean, she likes talking to you more than me,” he said with only a touch of bitterness.

“Try not to get too plastered, March,” Jackson pleaded. “We still have work to do before tomorrow.”

March saluted him. “Aye aye,” he said unconvincingly and disappeared down the hall, straightening his tie.

Healy felt woefully out of place in this particular setting, and wished they were camping out by the lake that the concierge had told them about. He thought about it for a moment and realized Holland probably loathed camping. He chuckled to himself trying to picture it… March sleeping in a tent. March trying to build a campfire. March swatting at bugs and waking up in the night terrified by a coyote’s call.

He placed Holland’s suitcase on the bed of March’s room, then went into his, slipping his shoes off and getting a feel for the place before he picked up the phone to call Holly.

“Healy,” she said desperately. “I’ve been waiting for you guys to call! What the hell took so long?”

“We just got in. Just made a couple pit stops. Holly, what’s the matter?”

“I called the message service this morning. I mean, I figured, it’s been a week, we should check the messages, see if there are any cases you guys can get started on when you’re back, ‘cause we gotta keep working, you know, and we can’t just drop everything all the time. You guys should really get a secretary or something,” she was talking fast and saying a lot, just like her dad, babbling. “And there was a message from Tony and he sounded really scared and then he got cut off and I don’t know what happened to him. He could be dead!”

Jackson pulled out his notebook and a pen and spoke to her in that steady, strong way he used for quieting March. “Slow down, Holly,” he said. “Tell me exactly what he said.”

She took a deep breath. “Sorry,” she said, steadying herself. “He said that he needed help, that John was dead, and that everyone was at ‘the ranch.’ He said he ‘fucked up,’ and that he was going to go to the feds and tell them everything, then there was, like, all this noise like he dropped the phone and I could hear fighting on the other end. Then the message ran out.”

“Holly,” Jackson said. “Do not leave that room. Stay in it, keep the door locked.”

“Okay,” she said. “But what about you guys? Shouldn’t you get out of there?”

“We can’t now. We have to find out what happened to Tony. If he didn’t make it to the feds, we’re in more danger than we were before until we get this fucking guy.”

She hesitated for a minute. “I…I know. Just. Get him and get back here,” she said. “Tell Dad I love him. And…” she seemed torn. “I love you too, Healy. Like, not in a weird, inappropriate way. Just. I love… You’re good for us, for my dad. I care about you and I like having you around and please be careful.”

She hung up before he could respond, leaving him stunned.

*

Luckily he caught Holland before he’d finished his second drink. “We got a problem,” he said, sitting down on the stool next to him and waving the bartender away.

March set down his drink and looked at him with wide eyes. “Is Holly okay?”

“Yes,” Jackson said. “She’s safe. She called the message service and it looks like Tony might’ve blown things for us… He. He’s in a lot of trouble, March.”

He relayed what Holly had told him so they could work it through. The message was simple and short, but there was a lot to parse out.

March was buzzing, his anxiety kicking in full throttle. He hadn’t realized he even still cared about the guy until now, but the thought of Tony being dead chilled his guts and made him feel sick. Tony was an asshole, sure, but March wasn’t swimming in friends, so it hurt to lose one. Even one he hadn’t seen in years.

March looked at Jackson. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“No telling for sure. They may have wanted him alive, to see what he knows.”

“Well, let’s hope he’s more tight lipped than I’d be in his situation,” March mumbled. He put his head in his hands, wincing at the pull in his stitches, the tender bruises still raw, the fracture in his cheek pounding. He felt weak, and scared, and frozen. “We should go to the cops,” he realized out loud.

Healy sighed deeply and looked at him, brow furrowed. He said nothing. None of the answers he had were good. Nothing he could say was going to be reassuring, and he knew that’s what March was looking for.

“C’mon, man, aren’t you gonna tell me we need to gather our courage, do the right thing, a go-for-broke rescue mission?” Holland said frantically. “You’re… you’re my fucking conscience, Healy.”

Jackson chewed the inside of his lip, struggling with the urge to grab the unfinished whiskey off the bar and down it in one gulp. The truth was, there was probably nothing they could do for Tony, and even if there was a chance someone could get in there, find the man alive, and fight their way out, it wasn’t them. Not right now. Not with Jackson one-handed and March one-eyed and panicked. But what other option did they have? Without Tony or any photos of illegal activity, they had no evidence. “I dunno about go-for-broke,” he finally said, “but we need something… _anything_ else before we go to the cops.”

“How do you figure? We call the cops, tell them what we know… then we book it back to San Diego, pick up Holly and, I don’t know, go on vacation for a little while.”

“All we have right now is our word. Now, they can take that, and go up to the ranch, and see if they find anything suspicious, but I highly doubt they’ll have anything in plain sight,” Healy reasoned. “Then they’ll just be giving us away, showing our hand, and they won’t be able to pin anything on Meyer. He’ll walk, and we’ll be right back here, trying to make sure he doesn’t find us and fucking execute us.”

Holland whimpered and put his face down on the bar.

“And that’s _if_ the cops even decide to look into it at all. It’s more likely they’ll blow us off as a couple of nutjobss with too much time on our hands. Meyer’s a big shot with more money than God, and we’re just a couple of private dicks with delusions of grandeur.”

“So what do we do? What do we do?”

“If we get lucky, we get the pictures. Just like always, our usual work. If we get _extremely_ lucky, and I mean. _Really._ Lucky. We find Tony and get him to the feds so he can spill his guts,” he laid it out. “His testimony is first hand, not hearsay, and he’s a cop. We’d have to get him to admit to being on the take, but I think at this point he’ll take whatever he can get. Just a hunch. But we gotta go now. We can’t wait until tomorrow night. We get what we can before the drop, tip off the feds.”

Holland closed his eyes and tried to calm himself. The glass was empty before he realized he was drinking from it. He slowly sat back up and made himself get back to business. “The ‘ranch’ must mean that place up on Gridley. Bunch of orchards and farms out that way,” he said, reasoning through it. “We should go down to the city hall, see if we can find plans for some of the properties out there.”

“It’s a good call. We could plan our approach that way, see what the best route looks like,” Jackson agreed. “We should go on foot. No headlights, no engine sounds to give us away.”

*

March called Holly to let her know they were going off the grid for a while, and that they wouldn’t be able to check in with her until it was over.

“Look, if something happens…” he started.

“No. Dad. Nothing is going to happen,” she said stubbornly. “I’ll see you Saturday.”

“I love you, Holly.”

“I love you too, Dad.”

He tried to put it out of his head, but he couldn’t help but think it sounded like goodbye.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I'm gonna need y'all to go with me on the suspension of disbelief here... I don't really actually know if you could check recorded messages remotely in the 70s, or if an answering service was an actual live person answering the phone and taking a message for you, but I'm just making a call here that Holly was able to get to a voice mail service remotely and hear the message from Tony. I actually tried looking it up, but it wasn't clear from what I found and I was too embarrassed to ask my parents for historical advice for my fanfiction.


	8. The Ranch

It was a pretty sure bet, once they’d studied the elevation map of the area and the building records they could find on file, that they’d pinpointed what had to be “The Ranch” that Tony was referring to in his message. It fit with the curt description that Healy had found in Horner’s journal, as it was about a mile up Gridley past the cross street Hectonage.

According to the elevations, the house would be in a perfectly secluded little valley up in the hills. After clearing the ridge of the main street, a long dirt road would wind down and stop at a sprawling hacienda about a mile out, surrounded by orange trees.

They would need to approach from a hiking trail a few miles behind the property, and, though it would be ideal to do so after dark, they didn’t have the luxury of time. The longer Meyer had Tony, the more likely it was he would kill him or manage to get information out of him.

The summer heat was stifling, and they were both sweating. Jackson had begrudgingly left the jacket in the car, coming out in a t-shirt, and even Holland had opted not to wear a suit, going with some blue slacks and a light, linen button down with a long tab collar. Healy breathed in the smell of fresh wild sage coming up the hill on a warm breeze. He steadied himself.

“Get in, get pictures, get out,” Healy said to March as they checked their packs, making sure they had everything they needed. “If we see Tony, we’ll try to get him out of there, but that can’t be our first priority. Honestly, the feds raiding the place would be of more help to him than we could ever be, and that won't happen if we can't get back to them.”

March nodded, a cigarette pressed between his lips. He checked the bullets in his gun for the fourth time. “Get in, get out,” he muttered to himself. Midday on a Thursday, there wasn’t anyone else on the trail. He leaned heavily against a large metal sign that read “AVOCADO THEFT IS A CRIME.” Every piece of this town seemed to butt up against someone’s ranch or orchard. Up where they were now, the houses were so far apart he wondered if anyone knew their neighbors. Of course, he didn’t really know his own neighbors, but he’d heard somewhere that small towns were better about that. “How’s your arm?” he asked Jackson.

Healy had the splinted appendage hugged across his stomach. “I’ll be okay. You? How’s your head?”

“The drinks helped,” March said, stowing his gun. He wished they had the shotgun, but at least he’d talked Healy into letting him keep the Ruger on his ankle. “I think we’re as ready as we’ll ever be.”

They had to go up and over a steep, rocky incline, far off the trail, snagging their clothes and bags on scraggly red manzanita trees and dodging poison oak. The ground was dry, cracked, and full of gopher holes that Holland stumbled over more than once. At one point, they were almost on their hands and knees, Jackson struggling to make the climb one-handed. March helped him where he could, trying not to be too patronizing as he offered an arm to pull Healy up.

As Jackson stepped carefully over a pile of scat, March shivered despite the heat, wondering if they’d go through all this trouble just to get mauled to death by a mountain lion. It was known to happen around here, and it was the kind of luck he had.

They came down on the other side of the ledge in the late afternoon, dirty and exhausted, and were grateful for the outer perimeter of the property being heavily populated by oak trees before the orange grove began. It gave them a minute of shade and cover before they’d be more exposed. They could make out the house at the bottom of the wooded bowl, mostly obscured by the the orchard and more oak trees, but from their vantage point they could clearly see several luxury cars, a small cargo box truck, and a couple of Harleys parked along the side. There was a kidney-shaped turquoise pool glistening in the sunlight, and, a little further off, a couple of tennis courts. A paved dog run with several kennels was sectioned off with a chain link fence.

From where they were they couldn’t see any dogs out, or people, for that matter.

March took three successively deeper breaths as he looked down on their intended target. “You know,” he said quietly, “I know this is the whole reason we drove up here, but for some reason it didn’t really stick until now.”

Healy patted him on the back and gave him a reassuring nod. “Look, it’s about an hour until sundown. Let’s just take a break up here and go the rest of the way at dusk.”

They settled in against the trees, Healy in quiet thought, March in quiet panic. Well, you know. For as long as he could handle being quiet.

“He’s dead,” he said quietly.

“He could be alive.”

“But he’s not. He’s dead.”

Jackson sighed wearily. “Look, this situation is nerve-wracking enough as it is,” he admitted. “I can’t have you losing it on me right now.”

March blinked at him. “You’re nervous?”

“Yeah!” Jackson responded, incredulous that March wouldn’t be able to guess that on his own. “I mean, we’re, we’re about to spy on an arms dealer who has definitely murdered people. A lot of people. What do you think I am, some kind of robot?”

March shrugged. “Not a robot. Samurai maybe?”

Jackson laughed. “Samurai, huh?”

“Yeah. Stoic.”

“Is that what you think.”

“You’re always. _Together,_ ” March went on. “Even when you were just out there bruising for dough, you had a plan. And you’ve taken to the PI work like a duck to water.”  
Jackson shifted uncomfortably, not used to open praise, not just from March, but from anyone. “Thanks,” he said, quietly, almost to himself.

“I just find it hard to imagine you being nervous about anything.”

“Well. You know. I guess... I like to keep it to myself.” He was aware of the fact that March was still sort of staring at him, but he didn’t turn to look at him. “For me, it’s a slippery slope to going back to the way things were when I was… well,” he didn’t want to say ‘a drunk,’ but that’s what he was thinking. It just seemed insensitive to say so in front of March, when the guy seemed so very _not_ ready to admit to having a problem.

“I don’t think you have to worry too much about going back to that,” March said confidently, picking up on the hint. “I mean, you got back on the wagon around _Christmas_ , which, let’s not downplay it, was a fucking superhuman feat if ever there was one.”

“I had Holly, cheering me on. And, I seem to recall you being pretty goddamn supportive yourself.”

“Hey. One of us has to be the designated driver in this partnership, and fuck if it’s gonna be me.”

March’s offer for Healy to join the agency as a partner was more or less the main driving force behind Jackson getting over the hump of his relapse. Because of the March family, he’d experienced only a bad month, rather than spiraling out of control and back into the years of darkness he’d experienced before.

It defied all logic. He didn’t have that kind of strength on his own. His methods had been pure avoidance for so long, he wasn’t equipped with any kind of support system for facing failure. Holly had gotten him to start going to meetings again, and encouraged him to talk to his sponsor. He did it mostly for her at first, because he couldn’t bear the thought of her dealing with two grown men who were drowning themselves in liquor. Then March had been supportive in his own strange, Holland way, even drinking noticeably less around him for a couple of months.

Of course, as soon as Jackson had really felt like he was on solid ground, the new house was almost finished, and that was when March’s support had dipped. He’d gone back to old habits hard, gotten more nervous again, and the confidence he’d exuded right after the Detroit case had all but dried up in the last month.

The mountains and trees and sky all turned a gaudy pink color as the sun retreated, and March had finished the last of the whiskey he’d brought with him.

“It’s fucking beautiful up here,” Healy commented, not sure how to continue the conversation.

March just nodded, looking out across Chief’s Peak. “But we should move on,” he finished for Healy.

They creeped carefully down the hill, conscious of every stone they misplaced on their way down, barely breathing the closer they got. They went around to the opposite side of the house from the dog run, not interested in dealing with that obstacle, and were able to find some cover in the oaks on the far east corner.

The house was mostly windows, which Healy thought was stupid. Sure, natural light was great, but if you’re trying to be covert, did you really want everything on display? He figured it was the hubris of living in a secluded valley. No nosy neighbors, no reason for opacity.

It worked in their favor for the most part, and, although most of the blinds were closed, they caught a glimpse of someone sitting in an armchair in the living room, watching a television bigger than any Healy had ever seen. There was a machine gun on the coffee table, and he snapped a couple of photos, standing as still as possible and adjusting the aperture for the low light. March had given him photography lessons a couple months ago, and he felt like he was getting the hang of it.

They were far back enough that they could see there was someone on sentry duty at the front door, armed with a long, sharp looking automatic rifle. The guy looked like he might’ve been in the military once upon a time, with a thick neck and a crew cut and a freshly shaved face. As far as Healy was concerned, these goons all looked alike at a certain point, the same dull, bruiser face, the same unimaginative idea of what you needed to wear to look intimidating.

March pointed to the cargo truck, and Healy noticed that its rear rolling door was partially open.

They looked at each other, and mentally drew straws. It would require sneaking around back, behind the dog kennels, to stay out of Crew Cut’s line of sight. Jackson put a hand on Holland’s shoulder to signal him to stay put, then set out on his own. They both knew it made sense. It was a miracle March hadn’t broken his neck getting down into the valley in the first place. Neither of them trusted he could make a silent trip all the way around the house and past the dogs.

As he came around the other side of the house, he caught sight of the kennels. It was so goddamn hot out that the animals were laying flat on their sides, dozing, and just generally inert. _Fucking criminals never take good care of their animals,_ he thought to himself. They didn’t stir as he got closer. Only one raised its head when he stepped on a twig and made a cracking sound. He was in the clear.

He took photos as he approached, and once he made it to the rear of the truck, checked the position of the guard, who just seemed kind of bored and not at all aware of his presence. The back of the truck was open just enough for him to slip under the gate.

It was a fucking jackpot. Wooden crates stacked floor to ceiling that revealed, when carefully pried open, a veritable arsenal of brand-new firearms. There was even a fucking anti-aircraft gun packed up in a steel case, secured to the foremost support beam. He took as many photos as he could in 60 seconds, using the flashlight to illuminate them. He even risked two polaroids, flash and all, so that they’d have instantaneous proof to hand over once they got out of here.

That was when he heard the crunch of shoes on the gravel outside. He hurriedly switched off the flashlight and held his breath.

*

March watched Healy climb into the back of the truck, the vehicle moving only slightly from the weight, not enough for Crew Cut to notice. Jackson might be stocky and sturdily built, but the man was something of a ninja when it came to these moves, and frankly, Holland was impressed.

Then he saw another sentry, who had come from god knows where, making a round through the gravel driveway. As the man approached the line of cars, March saw a flash go off that was visible from the back of the truck. It looked like the sentry hadn’t noticed, but he was on his way around the vehicles.

March held his breath, praying that Healy wouldn’t take another photo, and that the man wouldn’t check inside the truck.

After seconds that felt like hours, the guy turned back around and resumed his patrol toward the other side of the house, stopping to bum a cigarette off of Crew Cut. March waited, feeling his heartbeat loud in his ears, when, finally, Healy slipped out of the back of the truck. Jackson looked toward where he knew Holland was, found his eyes, and gestured that it was time to scram.

* * *

 

They each cut a path back to the spot in the oaks where they’d rested before, and the sky was that pale purple bruise color, sunset all used up. Catching his breath, March allowed himself a chuckle. “Are you fucking kidding me? We just fucking _aced_ that shit,” he whispered. “They had no idea we were there. What did you get?”

He showed him the polaroids, then tapped the camera. “Plenty,” Jackson said. “I’m having trouble believing it myself.”

March smiled somewhat proudly, held his hand out and took the camera from Healy, rewinding the film, carefully removing it, and popping it into a plastic pop top case. “What are you doing?” Jackson asked him, “There’s like four exposures left on that roll.”

March shrugged. “Force of habit. This one time, I was investigating this guy who was cheating on his wife with the secretary, I mean, real textbook shit, should’ve been a one-day deal. Anyway, as I was running back to the car with the camera, I fucking dropped it and the film popped out. Ended up taking me another two weeks to catch ‘em again.”

Healy laughed quietly. “Here’s to hoping that our next few cases are something that banal,” he said.

* * *

 

By the time they got back to the trail, it was completely dark. It was a new moon, so they couldn’t see very far, and had been using the flashlight, carefully pointed down at the ground so they wouldn’t be as visible from a distance. It felt strange for both of them to be in a place with no city lights, being able to see the stars so clearly.

They got more relaxed when they reached the road where they’d parked, both of them felt that sort of rush, the aftereffects from the adrenaline of being so close to such a bad situation and completely getting away with it.

Coming up around a bend in the road, the flashlight caught the reflective tail light of what Healy assumed was the Granada, until March stopped him with a hand on his elbow.

“That’s. Not our car,” he said, quieter than a whisper.

Before Healy could answer, the door of the car in question opened and a spotlight affixed over the side view mirror clicked on, widening their vision of the scene. It was a patrol car, Ojai Valley Police Department, parked behind the rental.

Holland sighed in relief, relaxing and starting to walk faster toward the light. “Oh thank God,” he said loudly, waving at the officer who got out. The man was holding a gun, leveled right at them.

“Now, hold it right there,” the cop said. “Hands where I can see them.”

“No. It’s okay,” Holland said, but put his hands up anyway. “We’re private investigators. Licensed to carry. We have a crime to report.”

The cop smiled. “A crime? Really?” He started to walk toward them.

Healy leaned toward March and whispered, “I don’t like this. Something’s wrong.”

“Relax,” March hissed, “It’s cool. We have what we need now.”

Healy couldn’t answer then. The officer was now close enough to hear anything he would say. He was silhouetted by the spotlight, making it hard to really see what he looked like.

“Name’s Trevor Larsen,” the cop said, lowering the gun and holding out his hand. “It’s okay, you can put your hands down. I do just need to see some identification and your permits. You understand.”

March chuckled with nervous relief and ran a hand through his hair. He glanced at Healy, and noticed that his face looked carved in stone, his eyes fiercely calm and fixed on Larsen. They both carefully reached into their pockets for their wallets, and handed the necessary credentials over.

As Larsen inspected what they gave him, Healy caught March’s eye and gave him a slow, almost imperceptible shake of the head, a signal that he hadn’t changed his mind about the situation.

“This looks to be in order,” he said to them, smiling and handing them back their cards. “Now tell me about this 'crime' or whatever it is you saw.”

March was seriously doubting his initial appraisal of the situation. This was not the first time Healy had been right about something based just on instinct, and the feeling he was picking up was not encouraging. He wasn’t sure what to say to get out of it now. “Why don’t we talk about it at the station, over coffee or something?” he tried. “It’s. Well. There’s mosquitoes eating me alive, might be nice to sit inside.”

Larsen gave him a slow, easy-going smile, but his eyes didn’t match the expression. “Mosquitoes,” he said, chuckling. “Sure. Fine. Let’s take the squad car.”

“We’ll follow you,” Jackson said before March could answer

“Nah,” the cop said. “Let’s go together, get acquainted on the way.”

“I think we should move the car,” Holland said quickly, “It’s parked illegally...”

“It’ll be fine here for a few more hours,” Larsen reasoned.

“If it’s all the same to you, we’ll just meet you there,” Jackson countered, starting to reach for his keys.

Larsen raised the revolver back to eye level with Healy and pulled back the hammer. “No. It’s not all the same.”

Both Healy and March had their hands in the air again. “ _Fuck!_ ” March swore.

“Shit,” Healy agreed. He hated being right.

“Yeah. Shit. As in you’re in deep,” the cop said dryly.

“Are we under arrest?” March asked, almost hopefully.

“Take off your guns, put ‘em on the ground,” was Larsen’s response.

March whimpered as he took off his shoulder holster and set it down by his feet. Healy was struggling to do the same, but with his arm held at a 90 degree angle by the splint, he couldn’t get to the buckle.

Larsen rolled his eyes, and pointed his gun at March. “Help him,” he demanded, and March obeyed. “Now,” Larsen said, “Dump the bags.”

Their cameras clattered to the asphalt, the casing splitting on one of the Nikons, dumping the film, not unlike Holland had described earlier.

“Take the other camera, pull the film out,” Larsen said.

Healy crouched down to pick it up, slowly, deliberately, as if he were going to continue to follow orders, but at the last second, hurled it full force at the cop’s face, shouting, “March, _run!”_

They turned tail and headed back toward the brush, hearing the cop fire the gun a half second after the camera hit him. The first two shots he fired seemed to disappear into the night. Neither of them looked back, but the hesitation in gunfire indicated that Larsen was now running after them.

Healy felt the soft dirt of the turnout on his feet and knew the trailhead was just ahead of them, a couple of feet away. They could hide, wait this out. That was when he heard the third shot and a yelp like the sound of a wounded dog.

Jackson stopped and turned around so fast he almost lost his balance. Holland was on the ground, curled up on one side, his hands clutching his leg just below the knee, cartilage and bone visible in the bright white light of the car. Healy dove down to him to try to help him, putting his hand under March’s arm and trying to pull him up, but Holland’s left leg folded under him like it was made of paper. The pain must have hit him then, because he became dead weight, passing out and pulling Healy back down with him.

The cop caught up with them then, and Healy made it up to one knee, bolting to get in between Larsen and March, his fists raised.

Larsen laughed, steadying the gun with the muzzle inches from Jackson’s forehead. “Very touching. Now get him in the fucking car. I haven’t got all night.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so mean to these guys.


	9. The Interrogation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Added a tag.

“We’re fucked we’re fucked we’re fuckedwe’refuckedwe’refucked,” Holland was muttering over and over, slumped sideways in the backseat of the squad car, his head in Healy’s lap.

“Will you shut him up?” Larsen snapped, turning onto the dirt road that led down to the ranch.

“You’re the one that kneecapped him,” Jackson said angrily. Both he and March were handcuffed. Larsen had forced Healy’s arm back into the cuffs despite the splint, and, based on the level of pain he was in right now, the nicked tendon was all but severed. It was nothing, he knew, compared to what March was experiencing. Even though he had a strong stomach and a historic familiarity with various injuries, he didn’t even want to think about Holland’s knee, how it had looked in the bright spotlight from the car. “Why didn’t you kill us?”

Larsen had stripped them of their weapons, found Holland’s ridiculous ankle gun, Healy’s buck knife, the brass knuckles, and the little plastic container of film. But instead of immediately executing them, like Healy had expected, he had put them in the back of the car, even sloppily bandaging March’s leg enough to slow the bleeding.

“Have to keep you alive for now,” Larsen responded. “Believe me, would’ve been my pleasure to off you both. But I’ve got my orders.”

“Fucking nazi,” Jackson muttered on behalf of his incapacitated partner.

March kept babbling, his breath coming in hisses and gulps, sometimes hyperventilating, sometimes just stopping for long, awful moments.

“Breathe, March,” Jackson tried to coach, but it felt useless. March wasn’t hearing him, wasn’t hearing anything. He was just one giant mess of raw nerves and fear.

Larsen pulled up to the gate of the ranch and pressed the intercom.

“Yeah,” said a man’s voice on the other end.

“I think I found those guys that cop was talking about,” Larsen reported proudly. “Got ‘em in the car here.”

“Nice,” the voice replied, and the gate slowly rolled open. They pulled up to the house a few minutes later, and Crew Cut was there waiting for them, along with some new friends. Jackson immediately recognized one stringy, grizzled looking biker with his arm in a sling… the lucky recipient of March’s bullet two nights ago at the bar. This kept getting better and better.

“Help me get ‘em outta here,” Larsen said, waving them over to the car.

They pulled March out roughly by the ankles, ignoring his screams as they let him fall into the driveway.

“I am so _sick_ of the noise _,_ ” Larsen hissed, pistol whipping Holland once across the back of the head.

The men laughed as March went quiet, unconscious once more.

“I’m going to kill every one of you fuckers,” Jackson barked, trying to get to March.

They laughed again. “He’s a tough one, ain’t he?” the biker said.

“Smoky,” Larsen said, grabbing March’s ankles again. “Help me with this guy.”

Smoky, a huge, hulking beast of a man, hooked his hands under March’s shoulders and helped Larsen carry him toward the house.

Healy felt two pairs of hands on either of his shoulders, yanking him out of the car and forcing him to his feet. He could feel the hard muzzle of a gun pressed against his spine, and tried to take some comfort in the fact that it took three of them to contain him as they marched him through a side door and down a flight of stairs.

There were two doors, the one at the top of the stairs, and a heavier, metal one at the bottom. They shoved Healy in first, then unceremoniously deposited March onto the floor. The room was dark except for the light coming from the doorway, which gave Jackson a second to look around and case the joint. Wine cellar, sheets of plastic covering the walls and floors. No windows. Blood spatter on the plastic on the floor. And there was someone else in the corner to his left, sitting against a barrel, head down.

Larsen and Smoky, who had just dropped March, went over to the slumped figure and pulled him up by the shoulders. Through the bruises and the blood, Jackson recognized Tony as they dragged him past. Maldonado was dead weight, the men dragging him up and out the door like he was a sack of potatoes.

The door closed, and Jackson and March were cast into pitch blackness.

* * *

 

When Holland awoke, he thought for a moment that he had gone blind. He was lying on his side, his stomach in knots, bile in his throat, waves of incredible pain radiating up his entire left side, spreading out over his whole body like lightning. _Transference,_ the word popped into his head, a memory from some other unpleasant experience he’d had in the past. He blinked hard, gritting his teeth, trying to catch his breath. He could see nothing and couldn’t think straight. “What… what’s happening?” asked weakly.

“March,” Healy’s voice answered, relieved to hear him. “We’re locked in a cellar.”

Holland sucked in a breath. “Fuck”

“Yeah,” Healy said, “We’re cuffed, hands and feet. There’s only one door in and out. No windows.” He paused. “How are you… doing?” He felt stupid asking, but in the dark he had no way of knowing if Holland was okay, or if he was going to stay awake this time.

“Hurts,” he grunted, gasping. “Why didn’t you tell me how much getting shot sucks?”

“Didn’t want to spoil the surprise,” Healy answered, deadpan. “You’ve gotta breathe.”

“Can’t. Need… I need a drink. I need _something..._ ” He felt completely disoriented, every inch of his body heavy as lead. Even in the dark, colorful spots were swimming in front of his eyes, and he had that weird burnt battery taste in his mouth that signaled he was concussed. _Again._ “How long’ve... been ‘sleep?” He slurred.

“I. I don’t know. You’ve been kind of in and out… Hours? A day? I can’t tell what time it is… they just left us down here.”

“Healy,” he said, finding he was having trouble speaking. It was important. He had to say something, but he suddenly couldn’t remember what it was. His thoughts were interrupted by a key in the door, and the lights went on, harsh and fluorescent. Both Jackson and Holland blinked hard against the change, their eyes having adjusted to the dark. Smoky and Larsen walked in, each carrying a folding chair. They set the chairs up in the middle of the room, facing each other, and then Harold Meyer entered the room.

Meyer looked different than he had… what was it… almost two weeks ago? He was still dressed in a meticulous suit, but there was this confidence and air of superiority that had been lacking when last they’d spoken. His black hair was swept back from his severe, angular face, his eyes gray and harsh.

Meyer parked himself in the chair closest to the door, sitting up perfectly straight, his hands, enveloped in black rubber gloves, rested on his knees. A sinister smile pulled at his lips.

Smoky and Larsen grabbed March by the shoulders and manhandled him into the empty chair. Larsen stayed standing behind him, putting his hands on his shoulders, as if there were any possibility of Holland trying to stand up in this condition.

Smoky walked over and pulled Healy up into a kneeling position, both hands grasping Jackson at the elbows to keep him contained.

March closed his eyes, trying to keep the room from spinning, which just seemed to make it worse.

This was his second concussion in as many days, and he didn’t recommend the experience, but his thoughts were becoming clearer the longer he was awake and the harder he focused.

Jackson was a little taken aback at just how bad March looked in the light. “He’s barely awake,” Healy said, buying Holland the time he needed to regain a sense of himself. “Just leave him alone.”

Meyer looked into March’s eyes, still smiling. “I think he’s doing just fine, wouldn’t you agree, Trevor?”

Larsen chuckled. “Looks okay to me,” he answered.

“Nice rumpus room,” March managed, his voice hoarse. “You decorate yourself?” And just like that, whatever magic switch Holland had inside of him had flipped… that perfect combo of exhaustion, adrenaline, pain, and being pushed so far past panic that he had attained that strange, clumsy nirvana. Healy had witnessed it before.

“Where is my wife, Mr. March,” Meyer asked quietly.

“How the fuck should I know?”

Meyer leaned forward, reached out, and grabbed March’s injured knee with one of his gloved hands, squeezing it hard. Holland screamed, and struggled against the cuffs. Meyer let go and sat back.

Holland gagged, spitting a little. “I don’t… I don’t know,” he said breathlessly.

“Get the fuck away from him!” Healy barked, fighting against Smoky’s hold on him.

“What about you, Mr. Healy,” Meyer said, “Might you have any insight?”

“Go fuck yourself,” Healy hissed.

Meyer looked Healy in the eye, then grabbed March’s knee again. Holland saw nothing but white light for several moments. “What the fuck!?” He choked. “You ask _him_ a question and then you fucking torture me instead? How does that work?”

Meyer laughed. “It gets to him,” he said, nodding toward Healy. “Doesn’t it?” He chuckled again.

March turned to look at Healy, and actually _noticed_ , really saw the anguish on Jackson’s face. It was a different enough expression, but something about it reminded him of the way Jackson had looked at him the night before last. And then it clicked, adding up with dozens of little moments he could suddenly remember between them, and he felt deeply ashamed.

“Hey, Harry,” said Larsen. “He’s got something written on his arm here.”

“Turn him around,” Meyer ordered, and Larsen dragged the chair around with March in it, so that Meyer could see the number on his arm. “San Diego area code,” Meyer noted. “Bring me a phone.”

Larsen left for a minute. Holland steeled himself, using every ounce of the meager control he had left to keep from giving anything away, willing Holly from across the miles not to answer the phone. Healy was silent as well, his mind racing as he tried to figure a way out of this. Larsen returned with the requested telephone, the cord running out the door.

Meyer dialed, waited, then said into the receiver, “Room 244, if you please.”

There was a pause while he listened to the operator on the other end.

“Is that so. Do you happen to know where she went?”

Another pause.

“And what did she look like?”

Pause.

“Well. You have been most _un_ helpful, I must say.” He hung up and handed the phone back to Dennis, who sat it down and went back to stand facing March.

“The young woman in that room checked out yesterday morning,” Meyer said to Larsen, over March’s head.

“They’ve probably got her on the move,” said Smoky.

“It wasn’t her,” Meyer said spitefully. “Some blonde child. _Yours_ I presume?”

“Client’s kid,” March muttered.

“You want I should go pick her up?” Larsen offered to Meyer.

Meyer thought about it for a second. “No. Let’s not waste our time. She could be anywhere. A bird in the hand and all that. I say we work with our detectives here until they decide to help me with Jill. Turn him back around for me.”

Larsen obediently dragged the chair and turned Holland back around to face Meyer.

For March, the feeling of utter relief at knowing Holly got away was so profound and euphoric that for a moment, the pain subsided. Holly was safe, at least for now, and he thanked whatever god or chaos demon ruled the universe that the girl didn’t follow instructions.

“Are either of you feeling up to talking yet?” Meyer asked. “You know, I paid you to investigate a crime for me, and you never delivered. I think I’m owed your assistance.”

“Eat shit,” March said defiantly, bracing himself for what came next, but still howling anyway when it happened.

“He doesn’t know anything,” Healy roared at Meyer.

“Oh? And you do?”

Healy stared him in the face. “I know enough.”

“Tell me Jackson. Tell me all about it.”

“Don’t tell him anything, Healy,” March said, his voice coming out in a strangled whisper. Holland’s face was paper white, beaded in sweat, the bruises from before looking even more ghastly.

Healy looked at Meyer. “If I tell you where your wife is. Will you let him go?”

Meyer laughed and slapped his thigh as if it were the funniest thing he’d ever heard. “My God, no. Are you…” He turned to Smoky, then to Larsen, with a grin on his face. “Is this guy for real?”

Meyer looked back at Healy again, his smile vanishing, his eyes ice cold. “No. You only have two choices. If you tell me where you and my idiotic brother-in-law took my _whore_ wife and her insolent whelps along with _my hard earned money,_ I will kill you both humanely, shot to the head, lights out. If you decide to keep up this little game, I will continue to torture you, in new and exciting ways, until you die slowly and painfully, screaming for mercy. And I haven’t even broken out all my toys yet.”

Smoky laughed then. “Yeah, just ask your friend Tony,” he contributed. “He held out for hours… before he gave you guys up.”

Larsen guffawed. “Yeah, he told us all about how the four of you worked together to get her to a safe house.”

“In fact, he tried to make the same deal you just did,” Meyer said, recalling it with delight. “He offered you up when he found out John was still alive. Isn’t that sweet? Thought he could save him. Well, we gave him the same choices we gave you.”

March’s heart sank, the news of Tony’s fate hitting him hard. It was a mixed feeling, part anger that Tony had lied about their involvement in order to save a known killer, but also sympathy and deep longing that came with understanding exactly why he did it.

Just then the door opened, and a new goon emerged, looking nervous as hell. “Sir,” the goon said quietly.

“What _is_ it,” Meyer snapped. “And make it quick. I’m in the middle of something.”

“Sir, you need to come… You’re needed out here.”

Meyer groaned, then brought his fist down on Holland’s knee again, smiling at the anguished cry he produced. Meyer sat back and took in his handy work, Holland slumped over, his chin on his chest, eyes squinted closed, and Healy pretty much foaming at the mouth trying to get out from under Smoky’s hold-- both of them pushed to their limits. And yet he knew he could do more. He had time.

He smiled, standing up and delicately peeling off the gloves. “This is absolutely wonderful,” he said. “I haven’t been able to do this in a while, so it’s a treat, four in one day. But I have a lot of business to attend to, so I suppose you won’t mind if I take a break here for a minute.” He turned to his lackeys. “Come on. They’ll still be here when we get back.”

They left, turning the lights back off and taking the phone with them, the door locking behind them.

“March,” Healy whispered. “March, talk to me.”

There was no answer.

Jackson tucked his knees into his chest and pulled his arms over his feet so his hands were in front of him, and crawled awkwardly over to where he knew Holland sat. He got his own knees under him so he was closer to March’s face. He reached out and felt for March carefully in the dark, his hands brushing March’s cheek. He pulled his hands back quickly. “Shit,” he swore. March’s skin was hot to the touch. “ _Fuck._ ”

Jackson felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up, the first sign of his own panic, a feeling he hadn’t truly indulged in for years. He’d staved it off for so long it felt almost foreign. But here, in the dark, he wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The torture tag only applies to this chapter.


	10. The Reveal

March stirred seconds later. “Healy.” His voice was so hoarse, it pained Jackson to hear him.

“March, don’t talk. Just rest.”

“I… got the keys...the. For the cuffs.”

“March,” Jackson said gently, reaching out in the dark to put his hands on March’s shoulder. “I think you might be dreaming.”

March made a noise that sounded almost like a laugh, but it was twisted, breathy. “No.  _ I have the keys _ .”

Jackson scoffed angrily. “Fuck you, March. I’m not. I’m not in the mood for this shit right now.”

“I got them from Larsen,” March said, definitely laughing now. It was a weak, strangled laugh, but full of genuine mirth. “Fucking... pickpocketed him... just now. He had em in his front pocket… the goddamn amateur...”

“You fucking beautiful savant,” Healy said earnestly, awe in his voice.

“Got ‘em in my hand.”

Healy sidled up behind him to get the keys out of Holland’s clenched fist. He made short work of his own cuffs, then started in on Holland’s. As soon as March’s hands were no longer forced together by the bindings, Healy could feel the man’s weight shifting, his body slipping heavily out of the chair. Healy caught him before he hit the floor, easing him the rest of the way down.

“Jesus, March, you’re burning up. How are you even talking to me right now?”

“Healy, I gotta tell you something,” March said after a moment, his voice breaking.

“That’s right. Because you’re a talker.”

“It’s important. Seriously.”

Healy sighed, patting March’s shoulder gently. “Go ahead.”

“This is– probably… I wasn’t. I wasn’t going to say this, but if  _ Tony…  _ I mean…. _ Tony... _ can talk about this kind of shit, I– And he’s dead now– and he never– And I didn’t notice. And I’m so fucking stupid…” he paused for a moment, then tried again. “Healy, I think I might be in… I think I’m...gay. Maybe.”

There was a bit of a stunned silence from Jackson as he was trying in vain to catalog all of his thoughts at once. “Wow,” he said flatly. “So. ‘Maybe’?”

“What?”

“You said you  _ might _ be gay.  _ Maybe _ ,” Healy repeated to him.

“Yeah, you know... I’m. Not sure I have it… figured out yet? I’m a– I like ladies, I apparently also like men…But I’ve never…” He was regretting this declaration. It wasn’t fleshed out enough, and it wasn’t exactly the point he’d intended to make to Healy. But as soon as he’d started talking, he’d lost enough of his nerve to only end up with half the truth. “Just. Go with it. It’s a whole thing, let’s not pick it apart.”

“Why… why are you telling me this right now?” Healy asked, still reeling a little, not daring to hope that March’s revelation would go farther. He didn’t trust himself to know if this meant what he thought it might. He was stuck, not able to let it go, but also not able to admit aloud what he’d known about himself for a while now. 

“Because…” he sucked in a breath, “Look, I think we both know I’m not doing great right now. And I wanted… I just. I think I just realized it, and I had to tell... someone...” He was fucking blowing it. There wasn’t going to be another chance, and still he couldn’t do it.

Jackson had been quiet about what he wanted out of life because it just didn’t seem smart to tempt fate like that. The world was hard enough without people knowing you were different. Different from whatever John Q Public defined as “normal,” anyway. Every time he thought he knew what he wanted or had what he wanted, it crumbled. “Are you… are you making fun of me?”

“Christ...Healy, you are  _ not _ making this easy on me, are you?” March groaned. He was shivering, starting to feel the press of a deep, unhealthy sleep creeping up on him.

They heard the sound of the upstairs door opening, footsteps on the stairs coming toward them. They’d finish this later, Jackson decided definitively, ignoring March’s implications of giving up. “March, we’re getting out of here,” he said firmly, touching Holland’s shoulder one more time before pushing himself to his feet. He grabbed a bottle of wine off of one of the racks.

Before the door had even opened all the way, Healy swung the bottle with both arms directly into the face of the person coming through the door. Larsen was unconscious immediately, falling face down into the room. Healy came up from the swing and caught Smoky in the jaw.

There was one guard at the top of the stairs as backup who came running down to assist, and Healy barreled into him head first. Once the man was down, he hit him over the head with the bottle six times, ensuring that he wouldn’t get back up. He took the biggest handgun from between the three of them and checked the bullets. It looked as if it had never been fired before.

Jackson knelt back down beside March and in the light from the doorway, found his hand, pressing the gun into it. “Are you able to hold this?”

March’s fingers curled around it and he nodded weakly. “Got it,” he confirmed.

“Brace yourself,” Healy warned, hefting Holland to his feet and pulling the man’s left arm over his shoulders. He slipped his right arm around March’s middle, grabbing him by the belt for stability. He was impressed that Holland didn’t cry out, just gritted his teeth and took a sharp breath.

“Healy, I don’t…” Holland grunted, “I don’t think I can do this.”

“Sure you can. Just like a three legged race at a picnic.”

“I hate picnics,” March moaned.

“And I hate music. We’re a couple of killjoys. Now let’s fuckin’ book it.” Healy could tell March was barely holding on as they struggled together up the stairs. 

The takedown had been quiet enough, so when they got to the top of the stairs the area was deserted looking. It was dark out, though Healy couldn’t tell if it was night or early morning. He was focused on the treeline, planning their route back into the hills, when March suddenly raised the gun and fired somewhere off to the left.

Healy’s attention turned toward where he was shooting, and saw that March had missed his mark. Crew Cut was raising his rifle and running toward them. March fired off a couple more shots, the first missing by about a half a mile, a result of his current lack of depth perception, but the second, by the grace of God, struck Crew Cut in the hip, knocking him to the ground. A spray of gunfire went straight up into the air as Crew Cut went down on his back, his finger instinctively pulling the trigger.

It gave them a chance to get running again, away from the house, toward the trucks and cars. There were more parked out there now, along with a whole pack of motorcycles lined up, and Jackson realized it must be Friday night already.

The cargo truck was still in the driveway, the back gate rolled all the way up. It had been unloaded at some point while they were in the basement and was standing empty. Larsen’s squad car was still parked in the same spot from the night before, several hundred feet down the road. Healy could feel the keys in his pocket. 

Suddenly March felt much heavier, and Healy could tell he was losing him.

They could hear Crew Cut screaming for reinforcements behind them, then the slamming of doors and the crunching of running feet on gravel. There wasn’t enough time to make it to the car.

Healy bolted for the trees instead, basically just dragging March at this point. Holland was using every ounce of his strength just to keep the gun in his hand. They made it into the dark of the treeline and Healy laid March down carefully in the prickly leaves and dry grass. Behind them lay the orchard, in front of them, the estate.

“You are so going to get poison oak,” March whispered.

Healy put a hand on his shoulder, “Quiet,” he said under his breath. “And also, why me? Wouldn’t you get it too?”

“Not allergic,” he answered. “Just lucky I guess.”

“Yeah,” Healy grumbled. “Real lucky.”

They fell silent again as they listened to the calamity of their captors coming outside and realizing what had happened. They were shielded by the house and the trees, fairly well hidden, but they were also less than 200 feet away from where they’d dropped Crew Cut, so any search party fanning out would be able to find them with a flashlight and barely any footwork.

“We’ve got like five minutes tops before they find us,” Healy noted.

“Oh good,” March sighed. “I’m so tired.”

“Knock it off. We’ve gotta move.”

“Yeah, about that.”

“March, just hang on to me, we’ll be fine.”

“I…  _ can’t _ , Healy. I mean. Really. Can’t. No can do. You’re gonna have to leave me.”

“No…”

“I gotta tell you one more thing, so you gotta shut up for a second.”

“March we gotta–”

“Please listen–”

“March–

“–I think I’m in love with you and I might as well say it because I am definitely going to die and I can’t screw up another relationship and fucking bite it without saying this shit,” March finally blurted out, a little louder than he intended. “Now get the fuck out of here.”

There was a heavy silence. “What?”

“You heard me,  _ get out of here _ ,” March’s voice caught in his throat, halfway between a sob and a whisper. “You have to get out so you can take care of Holly. Don’t let her go all Oliver Twist.”

“Fuck,” Healy swore angrily. “Fuck you, March. You drop that fucking bomb just like that, now you’re trying to make me leave you behind while I fuck off like some coward? And you use  _ Holly  _ as an excuse because you know I won’t say no to her...Are you fucking kidding me with this?” Healy realized there were tears coming from the corners of his eyes. “You  _ can’t _ ask me to leave you...”

“What does it matter if you do?” Holland said, closing his eyes, drifting. “You and Holly will be better off without me anyway. I’m a drunk and a fuckup, and I don’t deserve either of you.”

Healy reached out, grabbing Holland’s shirt. “March, don’t fucking say that shit…” He took a deep breath, like he was about to dive into freezing cold water. As if he were about to drown. “I fucking love you too, you asshole,” he said forcefully. “And I need you in my life, with your goddamn messes and your clutziness and your panic attacks and your wisecracking. I need... all of it.”

“Healy–”

Their conversation was cut off by a spray of bullets striking the ground near the tree. “Like I said before, we’re  _ both _ getting out of here,” Healy declared. He stood up, wielding the gun in his right hand, returning fire.

He caught the gunman in the chest. The man went down with a shocked look on his face. He must have just been firing at them based on hearing their voices because it looked like he hadn’t seen them until just now. Jackson ran up to the still figure and swapped out the pistol for the machine gun the man had been carrying.

The gunfire attracted the attention of the rest of the search party, and Healy could hear them coming. He grabbed March and lifted him up in a fireman’s carry, clutching both Holland’s right leg and arm to his chest with his own left forearm, the machine gun in his right hand, steadied against his side. Under normal circumstances, March would be too heavy for him to carry like this. But this wasn’t normal circumstances. This was Jackson Healy fighting to hold onto something good for once.

Jackson ran down from the trees toward the driveway, as quickly as he could while being careful of where he put his feet. March was out of it now, so if Healy busted an ankle coming down the hill, they were toast.

He plugged the first guy that came around the corner of the house, not sure where he hit him, and kept running. He heard more shooting behind him, and barely slowed down when a bullet caught him in the left elbow. He couldn’t feel it. It was all adrenaline and sheer force of will at this point. All he could see was his destination. Everything else was a long black tunnel.


	11. The Cavalry

The dogs were howling, and Jackson could hear that they were loose and in pursuit.

He had to hold March with his right hand now. His left wasn’t doing anything he told it to, which meant he had to abandon the gun. Everything was riding on this sprint, this one last ditch effort.

Behind him the crowd of goons and bikers sounded like it was growing, and gunshots followed him, dogged his heels. Gravel kicked up behind him.

He wasn’t sure how he made it to the car, but he was against it now, doubling over, balancing March across his back as he tried to fish the keys out of his pocket.

It was an impossible juggling act, and in the fumble, the keys fell out of his hand and disappeared under the car. A bullet sang past his ear, shattering the driver’s side window and then exiting with equal damage out the passenger side. He took better hold of March and crouched, running around to the other side of the car and using it as cover, laying March down against the front tire so he’d have full cover.

Through the glassless window he grabbed the shotgun that was resting between the two front seats, bringing it up to blast the closest shooter square in the chest and chin. He steadied the gun on the hood, ready for the rest of them. He felt unhinged, and completely out of control, the violence inside of him mixing with a cacophony of loss, love, despair, and wild hope.

The squad car was taking on massive damage. _We don’t have long,_ he thought, popping up when he could and returning fire. He took a man’s leg out from under him, and then swiveled the gun, catching another in the shoulder. They were advancing quickly.

Suddenly he heard glass breaking toward the back of the house, shouting, and more gunfire. The men coming for them heard it too, and it distracted half of them, leading them back toward the front door.

Healy took out another attacker, leaving only two left that were firing at the squad car where Jackson and Holland were cornered. Even the dogs had turned toward the activity in the house.

The firecracker sound of bullets and confusion echoed in the night, and moments later the front door was thrown open again. Meyer and his men ran from the house frantically, coughing, followed by billowing smoke.

Spilling around the sides of the house, dressed all in black, with helmets and body armor, came a third group of men, neither bikers nor Meyer’s men. Even without his glasses, Jackson could see the bold, yellow letters on their vests.

The shooting continued for a while. Maybe minutes. The two men who had been firing at the cop car had joined the fray and there was screaming, shouting, absolute chaos. It sounded as much like war as Jackson could imagine, but he was done being a part of it, done listening to it.

He slid wearily down the side of the car and looked down at March. Holland was barely breathing, the fever raging inside him, completely oblivious to the world around him. Jackson wrapped his good arm around March’s shoulders, drawing him into his chest. He buried his face in Holland’s hair, unaware of his own tears.

The FBI agents eventually pried his arms away from Holland, the EMTs taking March from there. Jackson was numb, his ears ringing, all voices blending and muffled. He let himself be led to the ambulance, shrugging off the blanket that was offered to him, batting away someone who tried to stop him to tend to his arm. He just followed the gurney that they had put March onto, like he was tied to Holland physically, like nothing could keep them from staying together.

* * *

 

There was music playing, or Holland was dreaming it, he couldn’t tell which. Patti Smith was lamenting the death of her girlfriend while on vacation at Redondo Beach. There was sand in his eyes. Maybe he was on the beach too.

 _No,_ he thought, realizing what it was, _I’ve just been asleep for too long. How long?_ All he knew at the moment was that he felt good. Like, a little _too_ good.

“I know you’re awake,” a voice said next to him. There was the click of an analog button and the music stopped.

“Holly?” He was still hoarse, and his throat felt incredibly dry and scratchy. His hand went up for the nasal cannula that rested across his face, but a small, soft hand grabbed his. He opened his eyes, and saw the beautiful face of his daughter.

She looked tired, but happy, a sweet smile gracing her lips as she stared back at him with eyes that looked like her mother’s. “You missed my piano recital,” she said with a smirk.

“Wh..what?”

She laughed gently. “I’m just fucking with you,” she said softly. “You’re on a lot of drugs right now.”

“Good, because Healy hates music...” He squeezed her hand.

“They said you’re going to be okay,” she said to him, squeezing his hand back. “You know, whatever ‘okay’ means in our world.”

“What… happened?”

“A lot,” she said, “But I think we should talk about it later.” She bit her lip for a moment and then leaned over, wrapping her arms around his neck. “You really scared us,” she whispered, kissing his cheek.

March hugged her, holding her against his chest, his heart aching at the thought of how close he’d come to never seeing her again. He was a lousy father, he knew, but he also knew she loved him, and it meant everything to him.

She came out of the hug and sat on the edge of the bed, still holding onto his hand.

He was becoming more aware of his body. There was a distant and unnerving pain in his left leg, which was heavily bandaged and suspended in traction. He had a general sense of exhaustion, but also a sort of euphoria that he could feel in his blood.

The memories started to trickle back through the haze and the warmth of drugs and sleep. The last thing he remembered was being lifted up onto Jackson’s shoulders, as if he didn’t weigh a thing. Gunfire. Dogs barking. “Holly,” he gasped. “Where’s Healy?”

“He’s just down the hall getting me a soda,” she said with a knowing smile on her face. “Be nice to him when he gets back. He had to have surgery on his arm and I don’t think he’s feeling too great either.”

“What? I’m not nice to him?”

“Not usually. Not as much as you should be, anyway,” she said, not trying to scold him, but, after all that happened, she was a little tired of waiting around for him to get wise.

March, with as much gravity as he could muster in his current state, told her, “That man saved my fucking life. Carried me out of there on his back like some kind of goddamn war hero. I’m gonna be fucking nice to him, believe me.”

She nodded, smiling with pride and admiration. “He didn’t tell me that, of course,” she said. “Though I thought something like that might have happened. There was no way you got out of there on your own.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence. But. Yeah. You’re not wrong.”

They both looked up when a voice in the doorway said, “I only got two cokes. Hope you’re not thirsty.”

March let his eyes focus on the figure in the doorway, and immediately a sense of reassurance and calm washed over him.

Jackson’s left arm was encased in a cast almost all the way up to his shoulder, held to his body in a sling. He had one open bottle of coke in his right hand, and a second bottle he had tucked into the sling for easier carrying. His glasses were back on his face, and he was wearing a new-looking hawaiian shirt and jeans. The leather jacket was nowhere to be seen.

He just stood there, staring at March with this silly grin, his forehead wrinkled up, his eyes warm and sparkling.

Holly patted her dad’s forearm and got up, walked over to Healy, and took the cokes from him. “I’ll go get the doctor to come check in,” she said to Jackson, giving him an encouraging smile. “In a minute or two.”

She left them alone and walked down the hall. Healy hesitated in the door, still looking at March.

“You look better,” he said to him.

“I feel… _amazing_ ,” Holland responded, a lazy smile pulling across his face.

“That’ll be the morphine,” Jackson noted, finally walking up to the bedside. “Please don’t get used to it.” He wanted so badly to touch him, but he was horrified. March had been so sick when they spoke, he had his doubts about what he might remember, and what he might regret.

“Are you okay?” March asked him. “Your arm?”

Jackson chuckled, and then sat down in the chair Holly had been in, moving the open book she had placed on the seat. He was careful to hold the page as he set it back down on the bedside table. “I’m fine, March. They fixed me up,” he said.

“How did the movie end? Are we still in danger?” He was enormously grateful for the drugs. Under any other circumstance he would be panicking right now, looking for the nearest exit. Though his concerns were real, they were buried under layers of calm that he knew were unnatural.

“Meyer was arrested. Along with twenty of his goons, and an entire local chapter of Hells Angels. We’re safe,” Jackson assured him, a youthful smile on his face. “And… don’t be mad at Holly.”

Holland eyed him suspiciously. “What. What did she do?”

“She fucking saved our asses, that’s what,” Healy said, shaking his head in astonishment. “She got to Danny. Found him in a hospital in West Covina. Told him she was his long-lost daughter, for Christ’s sake, and convinced him to turn himself over to the feds. Told them all about the deal in Ojai.”

March laughed weakly. “Is it terrible to be proud that my daughter is an accomplished liar?”

Healy laughed. “She’s a fucking phenomenon. An unstoppable force.”

“She is so grounded,” March chuckled, “But I also kind of want to buy her a car.” Holland looked away for a second, then sighed, trying to ride the high he knew was fleeting. It had to end sometime. “Uh… Tony..?” Why was he asking? He knew the answer.

Healy shook his head. “I'm sorry,” he said, adding, “He got Jill and the kids to safety. Honestly, he probably also ultimately kept us alive. Meyer would have executed is if he didn't think he could get something out of us. Not that I'm ready to. You know. Forgive him completely for what you went through.”

March nodded, processing. Meyer had implied as much during the interrogation, but it still sucked to hear it confirmed. “He was still a good guy,” he said, almost wincing at the platitude, but he wasn't sure what else to say. “He was just trying to protect his… Boyfriend?” He took a deep breath and decided to move on.

He waved both hands over his chest and down, like a magician’s ‘voila,’ and then looked back to Healy. “So what’s the damage?”

“You’ve been through the ringer, March,” Healy said. He held up his hand and started counting off fingers, “Shock, concussion, blood loss, infection. It was touch and go for a while,” he looked fretful remembering it. “The first day… was… bad... but late last night your fever went down and they said you were out of the woods.” He took a deep breath. “We... almost lost you.”

Jackson paused for a moment, looking at March, lying there, alert, his face still a little flushed from the fever and sleep. “They still need to do some work on your leg,” he added, “They had to wait until you were stable before they could operate, so you’ll be here a couple more days. I… uh… had the house cleaned up and I’ve kind of… settled in there. For Holly. So she can. You know, feel safe and be in her own room instead of a hotel. We’ve mostly been here, honestly, but… yeah. I just hope it’s okay.”

March looked at him, feeling guilty somehow. He could see the bags under Healy’s eyes, the lines in his face pronounced, his beard even less groomed than usual. March nodded at him. “Of course it’s fucking okay. Between your ‘can I take her to the library’ and ‘can I get your house cleaned and look out for your kid,’ you fucking crack me up. Next thing I know you’re gonna apologize for saving my fucking life. It’s not a thing. Just stay. You should. Stay with us. I’m gonna need the help.”

There was an awkward silence that followed as Healy started to seem fidgety and restless, chewing the inside of his lip in thought, not sure how to ask the question that was on his mind.

“Jesus, Healy, you’re making me nervous,” Holland said. “What’s eating you?”

“It’s just. Ah…” Jackson stammered, a sort of nervous and sad expression on his face, “Do you… Do you remember what. Do you remember what we talked about?”

He caught Jackson’s gaze and held it, even as the man was trying to look away. Holland reached out and took Healy’s wrist, pulling him closer. “I thought I was going to fucking die,” he admitted, “And that’s what it took for me to say what I did, because I’m such a goddamn coward. But I meant every fucking word. And even if it meant getting shot in the knee cap again, I’d do it over exactly the same way.”

Jackson’s face was awash with emotion, his brow furrowing, his smile growing. For a man who usually had an excellent poker face, he was hiding nothing right now. “March… are you. Are you sure?”

“Sure? I’m terrified, Healy,” March said by way of answer. “Because maybe this can’t work. I’m terrified of trying something I’ve never done before. I’m terrified of moving on. I’m terrified of making you hate me. I’m terrified of making the same mistakes I always fucking make with people because I’m such a goddamn piece of shit. But the thing is, what I’m more terrified of than anything else is going back to sleeping alone in that goddamn king sized bed because I was too chickenshit to tell you the fucking truth.”

Jackson had no answer. He leaned over and kissed Holland gently, feeling the prickle of the new stitches in March’s bottom lip. March gave into it gratefully, almost hungrily, returning the gesture, and reached up to put his hand in Jackson’s hair. March sighed, closing his eyes, savoring the taste of coca cola on his tongue. It felt electric. New, but familiar. He decided immediately that he liked the feeling of Healy's beard. He liked the gentle roughness. Kissing a man, kissing _this man_ was an experience he wanted to keep having.

Once they came apart, he kept his eyes closed and said in a voice lower than a whisper, “I don’t deserve this.”

Jackson put his hand on the side of March’s face. The bruises were finally starting to recede, March’s eye able to open almost completely at this point. “Yes. You fucking do,” he said firmly. “You can be happy. Stop trying to sabotage yourself, okay? I love you, but fuck if I’m gonna let you keep doing that shit on my watch.”

Holland looked away. “I. There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

“Likewise.”

“Shit that you’re not gonna like.”

Jackson huffed a short laugh. “I expect that’s true.”

“And?”

“And I’m willing to figure it out as we go along,” Healy responded. “Look, I think we can both agree that we’re just kind of crossing our fingers on this and hoping for the best, but it’s a gamble I’ll take.”

They gave each other some distance as soon as they heard footsteps in the hallway coming toward them. Holly came back in with the doctor and a nurse. Holly handed Healy back his coke and popped hers open, taking a swig while eyeballing both men, seemingly reading the situation completely in her Sherlockian way. She glanced at Healy while the doctor talked to her dad about next steps and surgery. The nurse drew blood, checked the monitors, recorded March’s temperature, and then both professionals left with the promise that they’d be back in a few hours to take him to the OR.

“So, Dad. Sounds like you’re gonna be pretty laid up for a while,” she said. “Might be hard, you know, once you get home.” She looked at her dad expectantly, eyebrows raised. He caught what she was implying.

“Ah. Yes. My daughter, always subtle,” March replied. “Healy’s gonna stick around for a while, stay at our place a bit longer.” Was it weird to call your significant other by their last name? Maybe if the whole situation was weird to begin with, it didn’t really matter. “Way ahead of you.”

“Really?” Holly asked excitedly.

“Yeah. I think I can make that sacrifice,” Jackson replied.

“Oh, and, changing the subject,” Holland added, “I hear you’re like a big time con artist these days. Just thought we could talk about that for a minute before I go under the knife.”

She blushed, tucking her hair behind her ear nervously. “Healy, you told him?” she asked, glancing at Jackson.

“Credit where credit is due, Holly,” he replied, shrugging carefully with one arm. “Besides. He’s my partner. I gotta disclose.”

She considered her options for a moment, thought about apologizing and throwing herself on the mercy of the court, but instead decided on the bravado she’d learned from her father. “I _told_ you I could help,” she said, matter-of-factly. “And I did.”

“Yeah. Fine. Okay. You were right. And. Thanks.”

She looked astonished. “That’s it?”

“I mean, I keep thinking about you tricking that fucking crazed ZZ-Top-wannabe that almost got us killed, and I think… where’s the harm. Really.”

“But I totally didn’t do what you asked me to! I left the hotel, I went out and investigated a lead on my own…”

“You used your instincts, Sweetheart,” March said, “Just like your old man.”

"Well, let's not get carried away,” Jackson muttered. He turned to Holly. “I don't know if your dad has great instinct or just incredible luck.”

“Same difference,” March replied. “And anyway, I had a summer job when I was your age,” he said.

“So did I,” Healy contributed.

“‘Summer job’? Or ‘mandatory community service for juvenile delinquents’?”

“Same difference.”

“So, wait,” Holly said, holding up her hand between them to stop the banter for a moment. “Are you guys saying…”

“Kind of…” March interrupted her to answer. “Well, I’m not adding your face to the ad or anything, but...”

“What your dad’s trying to say,” Jackson added, “Is ‘Welcome to the Team.’”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howdyspacebuddy, I promise I'm not copying you with the hospital scene! Just a sucker for 'em I guess.


	12. The Aftermath

Somewhere between the anesthesia and the comedown from the morphine, March had a nightmare. He was riding shotgun in Healy’s car, Holly in the back seat. Suddenly, Jackson lurched forward, head falling against the steering wheel, the car careening off the road. Blood poured from a wound in Healy’s back, blossoming red and thick from the hilt of a knife, the blade of which disappeared deep between his shoulderblades. Holly calmly opened the door and stepped out of the speeding car, disappearing behind them like a ghost, and then March realized that the hand holding the knife was his own.

He woke in the dark, drenched in sweat, gasping.

“Whoa there,” said a gravelly voice, and a strong hand rested gently but firmly on his chest, keeping him from trying to get up. Jackson was seated in a chair by the bed. A quick scan of the dimly lit room revealed that Holly was curled up on a cot in the corner, still sleeping.

Holland inspected Jackson’s face, his eyes trying to adjust. Everything felt foggy except for a deep and consuming sense of fear and anxiety. “You okay?” March asked Healy.

“Of course I am,” Jackson replied gently. “Just go back to sleep.”

Holland shook his head. “I… I dreamed...I thought that…” He looked at Healy pleadingly, as if he were afraid to go on.

“It’s okay, March,” Healy whispered. “It was just a dream. Go back to sleep.”

March felt an alarm deep down, sounding a warning about what would happen, inevitably, between him and Healy. Voicing his fears yesterday had apparently not been sufficient to put them out of his head.

Jackson had no idea what he was getting into. March could see it in his face. The poor guy was all optimism and goodness, despite his rough exterior. There was no way this could end well. He meant everything he’d said. He truly loved Healy in a way that felt altogether foreign and also like something he’d lost a long time ago and finally gotten back. Was he ready to risk all this again, just to fuck it up like he always did? Was he pulling Jackson into his orbit just to watch him burn up in the atmosphere? 

“Yeah,” March finally said. “Just a dream...”

* * *

 

“Nice Guys Investigations,” Holly said into the receiver. “How can I help you today?” Her pen was at the ready, a blank page open in her notebook where she sat at the kitchen table. She knew the ringing phone had probably woken her sleeping father, and she wondered why anyone would be calling after 9:00.

“Uh. Yes. Hello,” said the man on the other end. “I’m. Uh. My name is Bertram Anders, and. I uh. I think my brother may be… I think he may be sleeping with my wife.”

Holly listened diligently to the rest of his story, writing down notes and making sympathetic ‘oh my’s and ‘is that so’s where necessary.  She set him up for an appointment that Friday, planning to meet “Bertie” at a Denny’s on Vine. It would just be her and Healy for this meeting. They had just gotten Holland home from Ventura that morning, and she hoped he would stay out of the business for at least a few more days, get some rest and give himself time to heal.

She did wonder if eight weeks recovery might be a little ambitious, even if it was the higher end of the estimate from the surgeon. She had to consider her dad’s inability to take care of himself. For a guy that was mostly afraid of his own shadow, he could be incredibly reckless with his body. Sure, she and Healy were around to help him, but it was nearly impossible to keep him in line.

The last day at the hospital he’d been strangely distant. It seemed like quiet panic, or a sense of impending doom. She and Healy had more or less stayed at the hospital the whole time, but conversation between them was light and careful, at least in front of her. Holly got the impression that her dad and Healy still had some things to work out, even though she had  _ definitely  _ overheard them talking about love.

She heard her dad fumbling down the stairs while she was talking on the phone, even clumsier on the crutches than she could have imagined.

He got past her just as she was hanging up and started rummaging in the fridge for a beer. He was currently trying to balance with the crutches under him and the beer in one hand. She sighed and got up from the kitchen table, grabbing the bottle from his hand and reaching out to stabilize him when he tried to swipe it back. “You’re not supposed to drink with the antibiotics, or the pain meds,” she scolded, knowing it was no use. “I mean, at least wait an hour or two after taking them.” 

He conceded, more docile than usual. His latest brush with death had left him more exhausted than he’d expected, and there was a lot on his mind.

“And what are you doing out of bed, anyway? You’re supposed to be resting!”

“Who was that?” He asked, somehow getting himself over to the couch and settling in. The trip from bed to the fridge had really taken it out of him. Holly filled a glass with water and brought it to him. “It’s pretty late for a business call.”

“Where’s Healy?” she countered, sitting in the armchair across from him. Both pieces of furniture were brand new. Healy had insisted they get something for the sad, empty living room.

“He went to pick up my prescription. Left a while ago. He had to go to the one across town that’s open late,” March replied, sipping distastefully at the water. He looked at his watch to mark the time until he could have a beer. “So now you. Who was on the phone?”

“A client,” she said. “I think Healy and I can handle it. You should rest.”

“Oh fuck that,” he replied. “I’m doing better. I can get back into it.”

She looked at him doubtfully, but told him anyway. “He thinks his wife is stepping out with his brother, and he wants us to find out if that’s true.”

“Ugh, people are so predictable,” March commented. “But at least it sounds safe and simple.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Holly replied. “We could really use something safe right now.”

“Probably,” he admitted.

She looked at him. “You really should be in bed,” she observed again.

“I can’t sleep,” he said. “My whole… pattern is off. The drugs, the… I dunno. Stress?”

She looked at the pillow and neatly folded blankets at the end of the sofa. Healy had gathered them up earlier and laid them out, ready to spend the night there. “Dad,” she asked. “Why is Healy planning to sleep on the couch?”

He blinked hard. “Wait. What?” March asked, uncomfortably shifting the weight of his cast so he could sit up straighter. “We don’t have a guest room, Holly. Where’s he supposed to sleep?”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t insult my intelligence, Dad. I mean, I get why it’s hard for you to be out in the open about it in public… people are idiots, so. It’s scary,” she said. “But we’re a family. You don’t have to hide from me.”

He blushed and wished he was more mobile so he could just slink away. “Uh. I. So.”

“It’s okay. Really,” she was used to being the one who initiated this type of conversation. Any conversation of substance. For the most part he just talked to her about work and books. Almost everything was a joke with him, and serious discussions flustered him. “Look, I know, okay? And I know you don’t really know how to deal with it.”

“Jesus Christ, Holly,” March said. “I am way too tired for this right now. Can you meddle in my personal life in, like, a week? I’ll make an appointment.”

“You never want to talk about anything. We never talk about Mom, we never talk about how you’re doing… you’ve only been out of the hospital a few hours and you’re already ticking off the seconds until you can get wasted again and avoid everything important in your life!”

“I am not–  _ ticking off the seconds _ ,” he said defensively, wondering if she’d seen him looking at his watch. “I’m dealing with a lot of… things… that are complicated right now…”

“Which is exactly why you need to chill out and acknowledge the people in your life who are gonna help you get through this!”

The phone rang, interrupting them. “Oh thank God,” March sighed. “Holly, can you get that?”

She groaned and got up, scowling at him as she stomped over to the kitchen wall. “Nice Guys Investigations, how may I-- Mrs. Meyer?” she looked concerned and confused. “Slow down,” she said, trying to keep her voice level. It was a trick she’d picked up from Healy. “How?”

March fumbled with the crutches, trying to get himself up.

“Did you call the police?”

“Holly, what’s going on,” March asked urgently.

“Hello? Hello?”

March got to her and grabbed the phone out of her hand. Silence greeted him on the other end. “What happened?”

“The line went dead,” she said, her voice low and anxious. “Dad, she said... She said her brother is still alive, and that he’s coming for us.”

March tapped the phone hook several times, but couldn’t get a dial tone. “Holly, we gotta get out of here,” he said, trying to grab her hand and manage the crutches at the same time, but he wasn’t coordinated enough at the best of times, least of all in a panic, so his legs slipped out from under him and he fell, still holding Holly’s hand. She fell with him, and just as their heads dipped below the kitchen counter, there was a loud pop and the cupboard door behind them exploded in a shower of splinters.

They both got to a sitting position and scooted back against the cabinet, shielding themselves behind the kitchen island just as a second bullet, aimed lower, took a chunk out of the formica countertop “You have got to be  _ fucking _ kidding me!” March screeched in his little high pitched squeal.

Holly grabbed one of his crutches up off the floor and used it to reach for the cookie jar on the opposite counter. She hooked the handle around the lid and dragged, the jar clattering to the floor and bursting into a million pieces, bullets and the gun skittering across the linoleum. “Get your shit together, Dad!” She yelled, and he fell in line, rolling onto his stomach and army crawling to the gun where it lay on the floor by the oven.

He couldn’t get back up, but he was able to snake around the side of the island on his belly. John Horner was crouched, poised and ready to come around the side of the countertop and into kitchen, both hands holding the biggest, most ridiculous pistol March had ever seen. He was filthy, his eyes bloodshot, his face blistered with sunburn, his hands and shirt covered in dark black blood that looked several days old. March was able to get a shot off in Horner’s general direction, clipping John’s shin. The man fell to his knees as a result, but didn’t lose his aim or his grip on the pistol.

That was when they both heard a car jump the curb outside. Healy was home.

Horner and March caught each other’s eyes, their guns raised in a standoff. “Tell him to stand down!” Horner demanded.

The door flew open a half second later, before March could even think about how to answer, and John pulled off one final shot that struck the refrigerator and ricocheted out the window before Healy caught him in the back of his head with the elbow of his cast. Horner was face down on the carpet, Healy astride his shoulders. He pulled the gun out of Horner’s hand and tossed it behind him over his shoulder. Jackson then flipped him over bodily and started pummeling the man’s face with repeated blows from his right hand. Jackson’s face was cold and lifeless as stone. His eyes, however, were burning bright, almost glowing.

“Healy,” Holland said, still lying on the floor.

Healy kept pounding his fist into Horner’s face.

“Healy,” Holland said again, louder. Holly was starting to gather herself to get up, to at least see what was going on, but March waved a hand at her urgently, cautioning her to stay where she was.

Another raise of the fist, another wet, fleshy sound as Healy’s knuckles connected again.

“Jack,  _ stop, _ ” Holland said forcefully. “You’re staining the carpet.”

Healy finally ceased and looked up, his face a worried mess. “March?” he asked, seeing him on the floor. He looked around frantically and followed with, “Holly?”

“I’m right here,” she said from where she still sat behind the counter, raising a hand to where he could see it and waving. “We’re both okay, Healy.”

“I--” Jackson was breathing heavily, “I saw his car up the street… I thought. I thought maybe I was too late.”

March rolled onto his back and looked at him upside down. “Nope. Right on time, partner,” he said, wishing his silk paisley pajamas had a pocket for cigarettes. “Right on time.”

Holly came out from her hiding place and looked at Healy over the counter. His chest was still heaving, he was still straddling Horner’s prone body, and his right fist was still raised, ready for another blow. As soon as he caught Holly’s eyes, he stepped back, dropped his hand to his side awkwardly and looked down at his shoes.

“Holly, the cuffs are in the drawer above my head here,” March said, “Give them to Healy.”

She grabbed them, stepping over her father and into the living room, holding the cuffs and key out to Healy, “It’s okay,” she said gently, avoiding looking directly at Horner’s face, “you did what you had to.”

He smiled at her gratefully and set about securing Horner to the railing of the stairs. Not that he really needed to. Healy motioned at March with his head, “What’s he doing out of bed?”

“Being an idiot,” Holly answered, walking over to her father and helping him into a sitting position.

“I’m right here,” March said indignantly, taking a moment to visually inspect Holly and make sure she was all in once piece, “you could ask me.”

Healy finished his work and came over to crouch next to March. He reached out and put his hand on March’s chest over his heart, looking him in the eyes. Jackson looked like he was about to pass out.

Holland nodded shakily and brought a hand up to catch Jackson’s, gently rubbing his thumb over Healy’s bloodied knuckles, then reached out with his other hand to touch Holly’s shoulder and bring her toward him. She plopped down beside him and put her head against his side. The three of them sighed deeply and leaned together, huddled on the kitchen floor. The sound of approaching sirens comforted them, but not as much as the realization that together they were pretty much invincible.

“So, Holly,” March said, “Tell me more about what your friends’ dads do for a living?” 

*

The cops showed up a minute later, an ambulance a few seconds behind. Horner was loaded onto a gurney and rolled into the back of the meat wagon, which departed immediately. A detective stayed behind to get statements from Holly, March, and Healy. He was a younger man, clean cut with a Clark Kent aesthetic, and he looked them in the eyes earnestly when he introduced himself.

“Detective James Platt,” he said. “I wanted to first thank both of you for what you’ve done for the department.”  
March looked at him suspiciously from his position on the couch. Jackson and Holly had managed to get him up off the floor and settled in comfortably. Healy refused to sit down, and was standing protectively next to Holland by the arm of the sofa. Holly had taken a seat in the armchair. “You’re. Happy about what we did, exposing the payoffs from Meyer?” he asked in disbelief. In his experience, cops did not like corruption uncovered, didn’t like the spotlight it put on them. They often felt it undermined them even if they were straight. The media coverage of Tony’s clandestine dealings with a gun runner was not at all flattering for the LAPD.

Platt nodded gravely. “You may not think it, but there are those of us at the department who are tired of the way things have been for years. We’ve been waiting for someone on the outside to shake things up. Haven’t made much headway on our own,” he said. “I can’t tell you everything that’s going on right now… IA is still investigating… but this has been a real shake up.”

Jackson scoffed. “My partner almost got killed cleaning up for the fucking LAPD,” he said, his voice a low growl. “Twice. And this time, Holly was in danger too. What the fuck happened here?”

Platt sighed. “When the FBI cleaned up at the ranch,” he explained, “There were a lot of bodies, a lot of injuries. They found–” he looked over at Holly and hesitated.

She rolled her eyes. She said to Platt, “I think I can handle whatever you’re going to say.”

Platt looked back to Holland, who nodded his permission.

“They found some unidentifiable human remains,” he finished. “Near where they found Tony. They assumed it was Horner. Looks like he crawled out in the confusion, may have camped out in the wilderness back there for a few days until he was able to get out. He found Danny Smith, that informant we talked to, out on bail. Got to him before we could, then made his way over here.”

“He was killing witnesses,” Holly stated, “But why? Tony was so sure he just wanted to get his sister out of harm’s way, that he wasn’t interested in staying out of jail or remaining in Meyer’s business…”

“He must have been protecting his sister,” Holland suggested. “They froze all her assets when Meyer was arrested… everything she owns, all the money in her bank accounts, it was suddenly suspect.”

Healy added, remembering, “If he’s convicted, she loses everything. Tony and John were trying to get her to safety and secure a nest egg. Then Tony got caught and it was downhill from there.”

Platt nodded. “That’s pretty much the gist of it,” he admitted. “At least, that’s what we got from Jill. But the problem is that neither one of them stopped to explain the plan to her. Turns out she’s fine with taking the hit financially. She just wanted out, and she didn’t care how it happened.”

Holly squinted. “But that still doesn’t make any sense. The amount of witnesses was staggering… the FBI and ATF were there, saw all the guns, the bodies… he couldn’t possibly have hoped to knock off all the people he’d need to in order to get Meyer in the clear.”

March looked over at Healy, still looking shaken from his rush to get bloody revenge on Horner for what he thought he’d done. He thought about the distance that he’d put between himself and Jackson in just one day, because of his inability to trust himself. “I don’t think sense or logic has anything to do with it,” he said to her, still looking at Jackson. “Shit gets complicated when you’re trying to protect someone you love.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God, I can get sappy as hell with this stuff sometimes.


	13. The Partnership

“You sure I can’t convince you guys to get a hotel room?” Platt asked one last time as Healy showed him to the door. It was almost 2 am by then, the sinking feeling of another night without sleep quietly creeping up on Jackson.

The police had done a sweep of the house, searching through and collecting what little evidence they actually needed. Photographs were taken, bullet casings retrieved, March’s gun taken for ballistics testing. It was fairly open and shut, so the cops hadn’t even made them all wait outside. It had taken a few hours, but it was as non-disruptive as they could have hoped.

“I think after everything, we all just want to be home right now,” Jackson said, not catching himself at the implication that this was his home too. It was a slip of the tongue that Holly definitely did not miss. “We’ll be fine.  
  
“Well, you call if you need anything,” Platt offered, shaking hands with both Jackson and Holly as he left. He handed his card to Holly and smiled as he stepped out onto the porch.

They watched him walk out to his car and leave, along with the last of the black and white squad cars. At least they had a new friendly face at the LAPD. It would make their work easier in the long run.

Jackson put his hands on Holly’s shoulders and drew her in for a hug. “I’m so glad you’re alright, kiddo,” he said, sighing. She smiled sleepily and hugged him back.

They went back inside to find March asleep in his position on the couch, his mouth half open, two finished beers on the coffee table beside him. One of the cops must have taken pity on him and gotten those for him at some point during their visit.

Jackson made sure Holland’s leg was elevated and Holly grabbed a blanket, covering him up. Healy took a pillow over to the armchair and started to make himself as comfortable as possible.

“You should sleep in dad’s bed upstairs,” Holly suggested. “You’ve been sleeping in a chair for like a week. Can’t be good on your back.”

He smiled and shook his head. “I should be here in case he wakes up and needs something,” he said. “Don’t worry about me.”

She walked over and kissed the top of his head. “Please take care of yourself too,” she said sternly. “He’s a full time job sometimes.”

“ _‘Sometimes’_?” Healy asked, and she grinned.

He watched her walk up the stairs and tucked the pillow behind him, thinking about how unreal all of this was. He hadn’t had anything that felt this much like belonging in years. Maybe ever. And yet, at the same time, it all felt tenuous and fragile.

When Jackson finally came to accept and acknowledge that he was gay, he was about ten years older than March was now. Honestly, he’d suspected something in him was different from the status quo since he was twelve, but a good Catholic boy in a good Catholic family in the Bronx didn’t admit such things, even to himself. There was a danger in it, sure, but more than that, it just wasn’t even a viable possibility. Not even something that would cross your mind.

He just knew that when he thought about women, if he thought about them, it just didn’t get him anywhere. And most people would think that just meant it didn’t get him off. Sure, that might be true, but what was more important, in his mind, was that he never pictured himself spending his life with a woman, sharing a life in that way that people did with wives, becoming one person.

Examining it made him feel like a sap, but it was true. Hardly anyone had that romantic vision of a marriage anymore, gay, straight, or in-between, but that’s what he wanted out of a partnership.

He’d looked for fulfillment in secret in his twenties and thirties, thinking it was some sort of phase he could get out of his system, too scared to admit that he wanted more than a fuck. Nothing lasted, nothing felt right. He was a tough guy, surrounded by tough guys, and when he was able to find someone who was willing to go there with him, they weren’t willing to stick around. And he wasn’t ready to let them.

It wasn’t until after he was with June that he realized he might not be capable of finding love with a woman. And it was confusing, and difficult, because he _did_ love her. It was just. Different.

He’d had plenty of male friends, had bonded with many other men, but not in any way that could possibly be construed as anything other than friendship or camaraderie. On some occasions attraction had been there on his part, but it never was strong enough to urge him to make any kind of move. So he waited. And then he stopped waiting and just let it go. And he became content with his life, like a monk, free from distractions, free from complications. Spartan. Solitary. Disciplined.

Until March had become a part of his life, and he finally understood love– _that_ kind of love –in a way he’d never imagined. A connection so deep and so painful that he couldn’t imagine his life without it. And as if that weren’t enough to emotionally uproot his entire existence, he suddenly understood what it meant to be a parent, and to love a daughter so intensely you would do anything for her. Of course you’d kill for her, you’d killed for less, but you’d even restrain yourself from killing a psychopathic serial murderer just because she asks you to.

It was a lot. Too much, really, for someone who had, for well over a decade, made it his business to set emotions aside. And now here he was, living in this house, however temporarily, and calling it home.

He sat there, his eyes half closed, somewhere between sleep and waking but not comfortably in either, for a long time, thinking about the state of things. Wondering if he had any business being a part of this. Wondering if he had the strength for it.

March’s brow furrowed and he started to mumble in his sleep, his breath quickening, his hands clenching around the blanket. Healy got up and sat on the coffee table next to him, watching his face, debating whether he should just let him sleep through it, or if he should wake him up.

He didn’t have to decide, as March woke himself up, that familiar look of confusion in his eyes. He looked up at Healy. “Sorry,” he said, wiping his face with his hands. “Nightmare. The cops gone?” He winced involuntarily and put his hand on his upper thigh, over the cast.

Jackson nodded. “They left a couple hours ago,” he said. He picked up the bottle of pills and shook two of them out, handing them to Holland, then held out the glass of water that was still sitting there from earlier in the evening. It was barely touched, sitting full next to the empty beer bottles.

Holland accepted the offering gratefully, finishing the water and then letting himself sink back down into the couch. “I feel like shit,” he said.

“Understandable.”

“I mean, how about you,” he asked, looking Healy up and down. “You clocked him pretty hard with your bad arm there.”

Jackson smirked. “Hurt him more than it hurt me. These things are pretty solid,” he replied, tapping the elbow of his cast. There was a smear of blood on it from where it had connected with the back of Horner’s head.

“A word to the wise,” March said dryly. “Don’t go swimming with it.”

“Until I see mer _men_ in the pool, I don’t have any plans.”

Holland snuffed a laugh. “I can’t believe this kind of shit keeps happening to us,” he said. He motioned to a pack of cigarettes and a lighter on the end table near his feet, and Jackson retrieved them for him. Holland pulled one out of the pack directly with his mouth, his usual motion, lighting it up. The flame brightened his face in the dark living room.

“Ha. Yeah. Definitely more my speed than yours,” Healy acknowledged.

“At least we got paid before they froze her assets,” March commented.

“Small miracles.”

“It’s– At the risk of just _utterly_ jinxing us–” March said, taking another long drag and then blowing the smoke over the other side of the couch, away from Healy’s face “–It’s like, _actually_ over now, right?”

“Until we get into some other clusterfuck. Yeah.”

March groaned. “Let’s be pickier, though, okay?” He licked his fingertips and pinched the end of the cigarette, carefully setting it down on the side table behind his head. “All right. I’ve gotta hit the head. Hand me the crutches, will ya?”  
Healy stood, grabbing the crutches where they leaned against a chair, but said, “I don’t think you’re quite ready for these.”

“Excuse me?” March said.

“You’re like a fucking newborn colt on these things, all spindly and shaky,” Healy said unapologetically. “Let me give you a hand up the stairs at least.”

March rolled his eyes. “You and the goddamn horse metaphors.” He took Healy’s hand and let him help him up onto one leg, putting his arm around Jackson’s shoulders.

They took the stairs slowly, one at a time. March held the crutches in his hand anyway, so he’d have something to support himself when he got to level ground.

“Just wanted to let you know, in case you were wondering,” Jackson said softly, so as not to wake Holly, “I had them replace the toilet in there. So.”

“Wow. Chivalry is not dead after all.”

“Well, yeah. You wouldn’t know, but ‘dead guy’ is kind of one of those lasting fragrances you don’t want clinging to the porcelain.”

“I gotta tell you, I appreciate it, man. You think of the little details, and that’s why I hired you.”

“I thought we were partners.”

“Sure. Sure. But I mean, it _was_ my idea.”

They got to the top of the stairs and Healy stood by as March got going on his own. He kept close behind him as he followed him into the bedroom and toward the bathroom door.

“I’m gonna take this one solo, partner,” March said. “Don’t need you to hold it for me.”

Jackson waited outside the door anyway, perched on the foot of the bed. The last thing he needed was for March to fall again and hit his head. Holland emerged a minute later.

“You waited?”

“Had to make sure you made it out alright”

“Well, it was close there for a second. I almost fell in. But at the last minute I really pulled through.”

“Sounds like your usual MO.”

Holland made it over to the bed and climbed in, taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly, finally starting to feel relaxed. Jackson turned out the bedside light for him and then started to walk for the door.

“Wait,” March said. “Just. Stay.”

Healy looked at him over his shoulder. “Is that really what you want?”

March nodded. “I mean.” He looked slightly ashamed. “After everything…”

Jackson came back over to the bed and sat down on the empty side. “It’s just that it seemed a little weird… you know, back at the hospital, and today, since you’ve been home. I just wondered…”

Holland scratched his head. “I know.” He paused. “I. Uh. Well. And then that maniac came in and tried to kill us, and. And then we were all back together. I’m just not sure what to do with this… situation. You know?”

“I do know, actually,” Jackson said. He slipped his shoes and socks off and swung his legs up onto the bed, daring to get a little closer. “Maybe not exactly. But I get it. I’m not. I’m having a hard time with all this too. You get used to being alone, I guess. It sucks, but it’s familiar.”

March chuckled. “Yeah. To be so fucking scared of one thing, but equally terrified of the opposite. It’s stupid.” He ran a hand through his hair. “This was a lot fucking easier when I thought I was gonna die.”

“Ha. Yeah.”

“Thanks,” March said sarcastically.

“No, I mean. Seriously. What did we think this was gonna be? Easy?” Jackson said defensively. “You thought you were just gonna spill your guts and then go quietly into that dark night. But here we are. We’ve said it, we’ve got it out in the fucking open, and now we gotta deal with it.”

“And I even doubled down.”

“Exactly.”

March sighed, his eyebrows stitching together as he stared upward, wondering whose bright idea stucco ceilings had been. There were already cobwebs up there. “We got cut off,” he said dully.

“What?”

“In the hospital. With the doctor, and the nurse, and the surgery, and Holly was around… we didn’t finish.” He pushed out the drawer of the bedside table without looking, producing a bottle of vodka from the darkness within like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat. “I told you. There are things you don’t know about me.”

“I said it before, I’ll say it again. I love you, I don't care.” Jackson turned on his side to look at him, watching him tilt the bottle into his mouth just as easily as breathing.

“Yeah. Well. We’ll see how long it lasts, I guess,” March said pathetically, holding the neck of the bottle. “You know what happened to the last person I loved.”

Healy snatched the bottle out of his hand and pulled it back, away from March’s reach. “I thought that might be what this is about.”

“Guess I’m just predictable like that,” March said defeatedly, the shrug inherent in his tone.

“No. Uh uh,” Jackson said firmly, “You’re not giving up. We’re not done here.’”

“Fucking look at me, Healy. Take a good fucking look,” he said, reaching up and flipping the light back on. “I’m a fucking trainwreck. This is what you’re signing up for.”

“I don’t know what you expect me to say when you just keep putting yourself down like that.”

“Say you’re too good for this shit! Say you have better things to do! There’re other fucking fish in the goddamn sea.”

“I already told you _I don’t care_. I’ll take it. I’ll take all of it.”

Holland’s cheeks flushed and his eyes turned angry. “You’ll just take it, then, huh? You’ll take all my fucking bullshit just like she did and where will it get you? Fucking betrayed. Let down. And when it ends, you’ll be sorry that the time you had on planet earth was wasted on a fuck up like me.”

Healy dropped the open bottle onto the shag carpet on his side of the bed and grabbed Holland’s wrist with his good hand. “Stop it.”

“Why? You love me but you don’t want the truth?”

“You didn’t let her down, March.”

“I fucking cheated on her! Every chance I got. And she knew it. And Holly knew it. And they both just… they both just kept on loving me! For what? For her to die alone and afraid, because of me? If she’d left me, if I’d left her, she’d be alive somewhere. Happy. Without me to get in the way.”

Jackson didn’t lessen his grip on March’s wrist. He stared at him in the dim light of the little lamp. “You don’t get to do that,” Healy growled. “You do not get to keep blaming yourself for what happened. It was a fucking accident. A horrible, awful accident, but just that. No one’s fault. You have no idea if there was anything that anyone could have done to prevent it. And you don’t get to say that she wasted anything on you. Don’t devalue her by denying her choice to love you. And I didn’t know her, but I know why that was a choice she kept making. You’re a fucking idiot sometimes, but there’s something inside you, March, that’s worth everything. Rose saw it, Holly sees it, and I see it too.”

“I’ll hurt you,” March said, still staring at the ceiling, hot tears trickling out of the corner of his eyes and into his ears. “I’ll lose you.”

Jackson moved his hand down and curled his thick fingers around Holland’s hand. “I am telling you. Right now. That you won’t.”

“How can you know that?” March asked, finally turning to face him. “I feel like I can’t even trust myself. You said June wrecked you. Why would you think I won’t do the same?”

Healy squeezed his hand. “I just have a feeling,” he said, “A gut instinct. And I have no fucking idea what I’m doing, but I’m ready for it. Because this might be the first time I’ve ever loved someone like this, so I’ll be god _damned_ if I’m going to let it get away.”

Holland stared at him, eyes still glistening, then reached out to him suddenly with both arms, his body heavy and tired, clumsy even lying down. He made solid contact with both of Jackson’s shoulders, gripping him and pulling him in for a kiss, their lips meeting eagerly.

He pulled away long enough to tear at Jackson’s shirt, but didn’t do it quickly or strongly enough, so the buttons held. Healy got the gist, however, and, leaning back in to keep kissing him, undid his shirt himself and slipped out of it, while March did the same with his own.

March turned on his side and pulled himself close to Jackson, burying his face in his chest, his hands shakily sliding down around Healy’s stomach.

Jackson grabbed his hand and guided it away from his gut, toward his back, but March insistently brought his hands back to where they were before. His mustache tickled Jackson’s collarbone where he kissed it, and Healy reached up to the back of March's head and grabbed a handful of his hair. His grip was firm but gentle, as if he had a perfect handle on just how strong he was.

“You’re goddamn gorgeous,” Holland said huskily, his voice muffled against Jackson’s shoulder.

Healy laughed lightly, disbelieving, but didn’t want to spoil the moment, so he went with it, letting March touch his body everywhere. All of the things he felt most ashamed of seemed inconsequential now, the euphoria overriding his usual hang-ups. March’s fingers caressed his belly, the soft spaces above his hips, the bumpy, unsightly scar on his bicep, the hard calluses on the palms of his hands. March seemed to be everywhere on him at once, touching him with his lips and hands and face.

Jackson reciprocated, wondering how in fuck he’d managed to get this close to this beautiful creature. March was muscular and tight, all angles and hard knots, but his skin was soft and inviting. He felt fragile and indestructible at the same time. He smelled of alcohol and tobacco and the woods, something of the wilderness and the outdoors coming off of him like a campfire or pine trees after rain. A mystery, considering the city-bound, smog-soaked life that March led.

Neither of them cared that it was awkward, their respective injuries getting in the way of something smooth and effortless, because that made sense, somehow. That even this, their most intimate moment, would take work beyond what so-called normal people dealt with. Their lives were both hard and kind of twisted, each of them constantly getting in their own way, but things were also unbelievably, unrelentingly beautiful and full of good fortune.

*

They lay in the dark, covered in sweat, the sheets tangled up at the foot of the bed. March’s arm was draped over Healy’s chest, his face against the man’s ribcage. He was sleeping deeply, almost comatose. It looked healing, dreamless, and Jackson smiled, gently running his hand through Holland’s hair. The sky through the window was turning a lighter shade of purple, the morning coming up on them where they lay, exhausted and fulfilled and glowing.

Healy knew that in the morning, Holland would stumble through the house looking for his fix, something to hide himself in, as punishment for feeling so happy. Jackson would retreat into himself and wait, feeling ineffective and somewhat helpless in the face of a partnership that defied all his expectations and threatened to break him open.

There would be hard times ahead, for sure, and maybe, somewhere down the line, they’d fall apart. But what did it matter, if there was this? If they could feel this high, and if they could be something other than alone, even for a moment, it would be worth the work. And maybe. Just maybe. If March was invincible and Healy was steadfast and unrelenting, they _would_ make it. Jackson would take those odds.

He finally let himself close his eyes, his body touching Holland’s, skin to skin, sinking into sleep together like they’d never come back out of it.


	14. The Family

Maybe it was the mileage and years of getting used to hard luck and chaos, but by 9:00 am the next morning, Holly felt nearly completely recovered from the stress of the night before. She’d be chain-smoking and drinking more than her father at this point if she let this stuff get to her. At 13, to have dodged being murdered this many times, it wouldn’t do to dwell on it. Better just to keep moving. Some kids were born adaptable, and she was one of them.

When Holly was eight years old, she’d had a profound moment of realization: the word “adult” didn't really mean anything. Her revelation was a moment born of a hundred smaller ones, built up over what she knew now must have only been about a year, but at that age, had felt like a lifetime.

She’d known, even at that young age, what lying was, and she knew what sex was, and she knew her parents did the former to each other and the latter with other people when they weren’t doing it with each other. What they didn't have anywhere else, that they couldn't seem to get through their heads, was love. It was so obvious that they were both in it deep, but for whatever reason they were both terrified of it.

And, sure, they'd worked it out, to some extent. Holland had eased up on the drinking, they'd both been more communicative with each other, they'd stopped screaming at each other, but the rough patch had had its permanent effect on Holly, and she no longer trusted that adults had it all figured out. Obviously “adult” wasn’t a title one earned. It was just thrust upon you after a certain age, and it sat uncomfortably around some people’s shoulders like a yoke.

It wasn’t that Rose and Holland were _bad_ parents per se. They always remembered birthdays, worked to support the family financially, and showed her unconditional love, which was more than she could say for some of her friends’ parents. It was just that both of them had an immaturity that left Holly unfulfilled in the emotional stability department.

Luckily they were immature in compatible ways. March was a bit lackadaisical, with no follow through and little predictability, painfully aloof at times and then tragically intense at others. Rose on the other hand was stubborn and saw everything through to the bitter end, often at a huge cost. She wouldn’t let things go, and she was too impatient to wait for better options.

Even with all of the over-complicating that her parents could manage, the three of them had a couple of years of incredibly good times, and while other kids might look at her life and think she’d had it rough, Holly had a generally favorable view of her childhood.

She remembered the nights when her mother would read to her, the weekends her dad took her to the range to practice shooting, the family trips to Disneyland or the beach. The pride she felt in listening to her father recount how he’d closed a case or when thinking of her mother’s professorship at UCLA School of Law. They might not be infallible, but they were making their lives work despite the slings and arrows of their own emotional failings.

Then, in that cyclical way that life had of lifting you way up and then dropping you from the top of a high rise directly onto the street, tragedy threw Holly and her father straight back into Bad Times.

Until recently, when Healy had entered their lives. Sure it hadn’t been under the best of circumstances, but what in either of their lives had been?

Jackson Healy, Real-Life Tough Guy and Secret All-Around Softy. The guy who loved Yoo-Hoo, wore sneakers all the time, fussed over a school of colorful fish that all had individual names and personalities, and regularly practiced chivalrous acts. The guy who could both knock a man out with one punch and still blush when trying to prevent his friend’s 13-year-old daughter from being corrupted by porn stars.

When Healy was around, Holly remembered more vividly how good things could be, and how good her father could be. That even with his schemes, selfishness, excuses, alcoholism, and crippling anxiety, Holland had a moral core and a god-given knack for detective work. Even when he was at his sorriest, her Dad did always put her first, and she’d known this, but it had been easier to remember lately, with Jackson around to shine a light on it.

So when she came down the stairs and found the living room and kitchen empty, no Healy sleeping on the couch, a quick peek out the front window revealing that his car was still there, as was the mercedes, she allowed herself a quiet laugh, a moment of giddiness. Because maybe romance wasn’t a myth. Maybe the cycle was on the upswing.

* * *

When Holland opened his eyes, for the first time in a long time he felt completely rested. It was foreign and invigorating. He definitely needed another hydrocodone or four to quiet his injured leg, but the rest of his body felt like he was the perfect amount of drunk, that sweet spot right before blackout. He hadn’t felt that in a long time, only having two settings now: buzzed or blitzed.

His hand was numb, tucked between Jackson’s chest and the pillow. Healy was lying on his stomach, his little superman curl stuck flat to his forehead, a low, gentle purr rumbling in his throat. It was a nice, unexpected alternative to loud, open-mouthed snoring, which March had been told he himself did.

He would have just let his hand be numb. It was an incredible feeling to lie there, the weight of someone you love resting on you in perfect slumber. But Jackson's broken arm was pressed underneath him, and Holland suddenly couldn’t stand the thought of Healy waking up so uncomfortable. He carefully extracted himself and gently pushed on Healy’s shoulder until he turned onto his back.

Healy’s eyes fluttered open a few moments later, and he turned his head to look at March in the orangey-glow of the afternoon light.

They both smiled at each other with wide, stupid, grins, both surprised at how easy this was, waking up next to each other. Jackson started it first, a low, easy chuckle slowly erupting into joyful laughter, reserved somehow even despite his mirth. Then March joined in, that wheezy, high-pitched laugh that sounded almost like crying, putting one hand lightly over his own mouth to try to stifle it, but he couldn’t.

They indulged in several seconds of cracking each other up before Jackson pushed himself up into a sitting position against the headboard, still grinning. “I’ll get you something to eat,” he said, reaching up to grab his shirt off the post of the bed. “Any requests?”

“Mmm. Eggs. Fucking fried eggs, man,” March said, stretching his arms above his head. “But I’ll come down to the kitchen with you. I’m not spending the whole day in bed again.”

“Hate to break it to you, but it’s 3:30. You basically already did spend the whole day in bed.”

“Gah,” March said, brushing him off with a wave of the hand. “I mean any _more_ of the day.” He carefully sat up, his left leg by necessity stretched out straight in front of him, and put his right foot down on the floor. Still naked, he first reached into the drawer beside the bed for a cigarette and lighter before searching the rumpled nest of sheets for his pajama bottoms. He found them, tangled up with Jackson’s jeans. He tossed Healy’s pants back to him and smiled over his shoulder.

“You slept,” Jackson observed, returning the smile.

“Yeah, I guess I did.” Holland struggled with the pants, forcing them over his cast and then shimmying into them awkwardly. “It’s uh. It’s been kind of a while. Um. Thanks. You know. For.”

Healy chuckled. “No problem,” he said, standing up and starting to get himself dressed.

“You really think…” Holland let the cigarette idle on his bottom lip, almost as if it didn’t have to be lit for him to get the satisfaction from it. “This. All this. We can.” He shrugged on his shirt and started buttoning it.

“Wow, you’re articulate this morning,” Jackson said, deadpan, discreetly pushing the mostly-empty vodka bottle under the bed with his foot so as not to draw attention to it.

March gave him a lopsided smile and grabbed the crutches. “Never mind. Now help me get downstairs. I’m fucking starving.”

*

Holly was sitting cross-legged on the couch playing Space Invaders on the Atari, and didn’t turn around when she heard them clunking down the stairs together. “I made coffee,” she offered, biting her lip to try to keep from smiling too much.

She knew, deep down, that it was weird to be this giddy about your dad's relationship. She was the only person she knew who had only one parent. None of her friends’ folks had gotten a divorce or been widowed, so she didn’t know what the normal reaction was to finding out your parent was dating. Or bisexual. That one was new, even to her, but she’d picked up on it fairly quickly. The kids at school would have a fucking field day with that one, as if they already didn’t think she was weird enough. She was ashamed at even thinking about what they would say. _Don’t be such a child,_ she thought to herself.

The elevated, mature side of her, her dominant side, the side that was a self-taught chef and avid reader of heady intellectual novels, knew that ‘normal’ was the stuff of the bourgeoisie, and that it shouldn’t matter what they thought. She didn’t really care what the so-called appropriate reaction was supposed to be to your dad having a new boyfriend. She cared that it was someone she herself loved and respected. She cared that it was someone who made her dad better.

“Yesss,” March said, unstably wobbling toward the kitchen for the coffee. Jackson followed close behind, his good arm outstretched in case Holland fell.

“You guys got eggs?” Healy asked her, going for the refrigerator once he was satisfied that March was safely leaned against the counter.

She set the joystick down and let the rows of alien ships descend upon her pixelated fighter. She turned around and knelt on the couch backward, looking at them across the countertop. “Yeah, I walked over to the grocery store a couple hours ago. Eggs, milk, bread, peanut butter.”

“Yoo Hoo?” Jackson asked hopefully, opening the fridge door and checking. Holly let him figure that one out for himself, smiling as she heard an excited exclamation from him.

He shook the bottle then tucked it in his sling, grabbing the carton of eggs. March was puffing away at his cigarette between sips of coffee. He reached in the cupboard in front of his face and pulled out a bottle of Bailey’s and added a little to his mug. Jackson and Holly exchanged looks that were lost on Holland, who hummed a little to himself as he indulged in his vices.

“So we got a couple calls this morning,” Holly said, coming into the kitchen to help Jackson find the skillet. “One was from Perry, who said we should have called him, like, two weeks ago.”

Holland rolled his eyes. “Yeah, so he could charge us…” he mumbled, puffing and sipping.

“He kind of has a point though. Might have been a good idea before we went all half-cocked into the middle of a kingpin’s hideout.”

March considered it and shrugged, conceding on that one.

“He also said Healy’s in the clear when it comes to Horner. Kind of an open and shut self defense thing, and Horner confessed when he woke up in the hospital this morning. There’s no shortage of people in Meyer’s inner circle who are willing to squeal, so he says it’s pretty impossible that Meyer will get away with anything.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Healy commented, testing the heat of the pan with a flick of water. It crackled and sizzled, so he picked up an egg and cracked it into the oil, letting it spread out. He still felt raw about their loss with Kutner and Detroit. “Although you’ll make a very sympathetic witness for the prosecution, March.”

Holland scoffed. “I’m not gonna be anyone’s Tiny Tim,” he said with an air of pride.

“The other call was a new case!” Holly said excitedly, helping herself to some coffee, skipping on the Bailey’s, but adding a jaw-dropping amount of sugar and cream.

“What about the guy whose wife is sleeping with his brother?” March asked, leaning heavily on the counter. He took the cigarette out of his mouth for a moment to pop a couple of pills and swallowed them with the coffee.

“I’ve got a hunch that might have been Horner calling just to see if we were home,” Holly said. “I called the number back that he gave me, and it was disconnected.”

March raised his mug in a toast. “That’s my girl. Good thinking, Sweetheart.”

“Yeah, thanks for checking in on that, kiddo,” Jackson said, scooping up one of the eggs and transferring it to a plate. “We’ve gotta be better about those background checks on clients. You want eggs, honey?”  
  
She eyed the perfectly executed fried egg on the plate and nodded. “Yeah I’ll take two.”

“So what’s the new case about?” March asked, getting himself over to the kitchen table and sitting down at its head. If the grub was ready, he figured he had dibs, as the most injured person in the household.

“A woman who thinks her father is cutting her out of his will. She’s sure everything’s going to her brothers. She wants to see if that’s true, and if it is, there might be more work in it for us, maybe digging stuff up on the guys so her dad will change his mind.”

“Sounds like we could help,” Healy said.

March raised his eyebrows at him from across the room. “Jesus. You sure you wanna keep doin’ this?”

Healy shrugged. “Sure. Why not. Gotta make a living.” He set a loaded plate in front of March and Holly handed him a fork. “But why don’t you let me handle the legwork.”

“Ha. _Ha_ ,” March said flatly, digging into the food with gusto.

Jackson finished making the eggs, and Holly helped him bring the plates over to the table and sat down. Like her father, she started shoveling the food in as if she hadn’t eaten in days.

“So I heard you hate music,” Holly said around a mouthful of eggs, jabbing her fork at Jackson.

Healy turned to Holland and gave him a sharp look. March put up his hands defensively. “Your words! Your _exact_ words.”

“Like… _all_ music?” Holly went on.

“I just have a _preference…_ ”

“You can’t hate all music,” Holly said shaking her head. She picked up a napkin and wiped her mouth.

“I know, right? That’s what I said!” Holland said.

Jackson groaned. “I just… never got into it. It’s not my thing.”

“That’s it,” March said definitively, pushing his chair away from the table. “Holly, give me a hand here,” he requested, getting up and tucking the crutches under his arms, swaying dangerously to the side as he tried to navigate over to the record cabinet in the corner of the room.

Jackson shook his head. _We really should have gotten him a wheelchair. He’s going to kill himself on those things._

Holly accompanied him and followed his pointing finger to an album on the second shelf up. He’d known exactly where it was, despite their having no system of organization, and the cardboard sleeve was so worn out it was unreadable along its spine.

When she pulled it out, she grinned, knowing which song he was going for, and carefully lined up the needle with the right grooves, dropping it onto the vinyl with surety.

The trumpets came in with that steady, catchy tune, the whispered lyric, “Let’s stay together,” coming in after a few seconds.

Healy laughed a little. “I think I’ve heard this one,” he said.

“Yeah, but have you heard it like this?” March asked with a sly grin, and, in perfect timing, took up singing along with Al Green in his best impression, “Iii...I’m so in _love_ with you… whatever you want to do… that’s alright with me-ee-e-ee-ee…”

Holly giggled. Usually her father hamming it up by singing loudly and in the character of the band or artist was absolutely mortifying, but in this case, she was just so glad to be _happy._ To see him being corny and romantic right in front of her, without shame or reservation.

Jackson covered his mouth thoughtfully with his hand, watching the scene. Holland leaning on this crutches, clad in his ridiculous pajamas, the sun flooding in from the back window, lighting up his dark blonde hair. He was fully committing to the song, singing the words with passion and animation in his face. Holly was dancing, slightly awkward, but still with that childlike sense of not caring too much whether she was good at it or not.

She giggled again and ran over to the table and reached over Healy’s shoulder, grabbing his right hand and gently pulling him up to stand. She led him back over to the living room where her dad was standing near the record player, and started dancing with him before he could protest.

When Holland got to the chorus, Holly took her dad’s hand and sang along with him, “Le-eh-eht’s, let’s stay together, loving you whether... whether...”

“Times are good or ba-ad, happy or sa-ad!”

Holly turned back to Jackson, grabbing both of his hands again, her fingers feeling tiny and delicate in his huge paws, and sang directly to him, “Whether times are good or ba-ad, happy or sa-ad.”

Healy couldn’t get the grin off of his face.

Holland took a break from singing to say loudly over the music, “You _hate_ this? I dare you to say you hate this.”

Jackson shook his head, his hands wrapped around Holly’s, feeling a well up of emotion in his chest. “No. This. This I could love.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you-- to everyone who has read this, to everyone that said such nice things, to everyone that encouraged me and was so welcoming.
> 
> I could not have asked for or imagined a better first-time-posting experience
> 
> I'm sorry to end this with such sickening sweetness... this is just how I feel about being in a family where happiness is hard-won. They deserve this kind of ending, and they still have a hard row to hoe ahead of them. I hope it's okay to just let them have a good, silly time.


End file.
